Penultimate.

May 2000. I got this idea from Bloom County, a sort of Doonesbury competitor in the '80s - again the idea that the characters know they are in a comic strip on some level was becoming a lot of fun, and I wished I'd had more time to play with that idea.

*Oh, I just remembered where Tad got his name - from way, way back in 1996 when I was first drawing a comic strip called "Tragic Kingdom," and there was a joke about someone being just a "tad" gay. As origin stories go, it's not your home planet exploding or anything, but there it is. Also, Tad has a last name that never came up - Quail. Zen's last name? St. Gerome. Vanna's? Van Damme. Chuque? L'eaucifeaur. Frank? Smith. (There was going to be a whole thing about how Tad didn't want to be "Tad Smith" when they got married because it was so dull) And now you know all of that.