Air Raid Robertson

Author notes

Air Raid Robertson Strip 36

Air Raid Robertson

on Dec. 9, 2009

I'm having a fit of insomnia, so I polished off my work on Air Raid Robertson a bit earlier than I usually do.

This is my second attempt at doing the 36th strip. I made a couple of errors on the previous attempt and had to start over. I hate starting over and I usually try to "fix" any mistakes if I can. However, that first draft was beyond saving.

One of my screw-ups was in drafting the tail fins for the rocket in panel one. I tried to cover up my error by blanketing the area with a meteor shower. Although I eventually scrapped the page I ultimately decided that I liked the meteor shower in and of itself.

And so, there it is.

Overall, I think this is one of the better drawn strips of Air Raid Robertson. I'm not sure why, but this one just clicks for me.

The architecture and citizens of Moon City are going to be loosely derived from the famous 1903 silent film "A Trip To The Moon". (Itself loosely derived from novels by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells) If you look in the last panel you'll see a little moon man with a shuttle impaled in its eye.

I've had the idea for the gag in the last few panels for quite a while. This entire story started as a premise for Ridley to venture into a foreign nation for diplomatic reasons and then find out that he strongly resembles their personification of Satan. Air Raid Robertson will have had prior experience in the region but he still fails to warn Ridley about the scenario.

This gag existed before I decided on setting this story on The Moon. It came before I created Ripley and The Ghost. It even predates the evil plot of T.H.E.E.Y. (More on that in the next few strips) This entire storyline kinda sprung up around this silly gag idea.