Gettin' quite a rise out of Beatrice here.

Hey, is this the first arc where we're seeing Bea?? If so, I forgot to mention that her design was based on Emily Hope Price's face! Emily was a cellist & vocalist in the wonderful-but-now-defunct band Pearl and the Beard! (She does amazing things with her voice and cello elsewhere now.)

PatB played in Shepherdstown - miraculously - TWICE, and on their second visit, they played at the Meck. I was in love with their music upon first listen, and when they came through a second time, I poked around to find out where they were staying, and found out that my friend Bob was arranging to put them up for the night.

I'd been to Bob's house and knew it was (very cute, but) tiiiiiiny, so I swept in and asked him if I could invite the band to crash at my place instead (no one was living in the back of the house at the time). Actually I think I drunkenly bullied Bob about his small house and then just told them to come stay with me. Clearly game for anything, including staying with a drunk bully stranger, they agreed.

This just happened to be the same week that I was working on this story arc.

When I offered to show the three band members around the house, it wasn't until I was at the door of my studio that I realized what I'd just done. To my horror, Emily stepped into my studio to find a printout of EVERY PHOTO OF HER FACE I COULD FIND ON THE INTERNET sitting next to a bunch of practice drawings. ._.

I was MORTIFIED. But, lucky for me, all three of the band members are into comics (Emily even makes some of her own on occasion, and Jocelyn once wrote a song for James Kochalka!). She was flattered! And even believed me when I insisted that I'm not obsessed with her or a crazy stalker or anything like that, ha. HA HA.

Here's Emily singing a song on a rooftop, from around the same time I was working on these strips. :) She's just lovely, find her and follow her (online, not in person).

Here's the old post!