This strip has been called everything from creepy to classic. It features the first introduction of Bonafide T. Gator, a character we had created in a notebook months earlier but had never known exactly how to integrate into the comic strip. Then one night the inspiration came to make a creepy alligator character into the strip’s centerpiece of misunderstanding and a lesson on tolerance. We later learned the newspaper staff debated whether or not he was a stereotype…of something.
Evil Beard’s niece is introduced in this strip and will turn up again later. Also of note is that it was the first strip that ever crossed over from one week to the next. The ending hints at the next strip, which we had begun work on early.
