I don't like talking, actually. I've never been very good at it, and I seem to have lately begun developing a stutter. This makes doing the radio show every Saturday morning a bit of a challenge, but most of the talking I do there comes when I'm reading stories over the air, so that's all right.

     Besides, radio's different from regular talking. When I'm talking to someone, I have to stand there, look at them, listen to them, hear what they're saying, and react to it. On the radio, I just send words out into the void; I don't have to worry so much about whether they make any sense or not.

     Heck, it sometimes makes the show more amusing if what I say doesn't particularly make sense.

     But I think that's why I like writing Kestrel's often ranting dialogue--like in the next strip, for instance. Kestrel can talk and does talk. Frequently and unabashedly. Never mind that it can sometimes take me a week to get it all worked out for him: on the page, it seems to flow slick as snot, as we used to say. Yeah, Kestrel's got it easy, the little...why I oughtta...