Page 35 of Keeping Time

Panel 1: Elena finishes signing the clipboard with a 'swoosh' and a flourish. She has her hair in her signature Halle Berry-esque pixie cut and is wearing gold hoop earrings and a black halter top. She declares, "There! That should do it." The delivery man, an older gentleman with greying hair, smiles. The name tag on his shirt reads, "López." He says, "Gracias, Elena."

Panel 2: Elena, smiling as she waves over her shoulder, replies, "See you next week!" The delivery man wheels the now empty hand truck away.

Panel 3: Elena turns and looks over her shoulder. She says, "Okay! Now it's your turn!"

Panel 4: Elena touches her chin lightly, arms folded, deep in thought as she looks at Daniel from beneath one raised eyebrow. She asks, "Remind me what position you were interested in again? Barback?" Daniel smiles back as he answers, "Err, no. Are you still looking for a pianist...?"

Panel 5: Elena snaps her fingers as she remembers. "Ah! That's right! You wanna be our new weeknight pianist. Daniel, was it?" Daniel is still smiling a little nervously. He answers, "Yeah. Thanks for agreeing to see me. I hope I'm not late...?"
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Page 35

Sometimes you write in a single occurrence character just so you can put your friend's name on his name tag as a little homage (hey, J.J.! If you're reading this, thanks buddy).

In initial drafts of this chapter, there was not this much Elena in it. But pretty much as soon as I started writing her, all I wanted to do was keep writing her, so in the end, this chapter has wound up with a lot of Elena in it. (I do not apologize!! I love her!!)

As a small aside, promoting and advertising for webcomics has been a discussion over on BlueSky this past week. Nero of Ultraviolents and Split Check shared a great post with his insights and experiences with promoting webcomics, particularly with the ComicAd Network! In his thread, he mentions the problem with ComicAd is that there's "more people wanting to advertise than there are spots TO advertise." Long story short, you might notice the Keeping Time site now features ComicAds! I know we all want to see less ads in the world, but one or two ads on an independent comic website promoting other independent comic websites is one of the least egregious ads I can think of, and it all works to put a tiny bit more change in our pockets to help keep these comics going and these sites running, so please consider whitelisting this site from your AdBlockers if you're able.

Also, if you're interested in running your ads here, here's the Keeping Time entry on ComicAd!

Okay, that's it from me. See you next week Tuesday!