I've said it before and I'll say it again, this comic is total wish fulfillment for me. Malaya's parents are pretty much based on my own parents, except they have more impressive jobs, actually stayed married, and are way more (fictionally) alive than my parents. I'm pretty tired of the "one dead parent" and "evil parent" narratives. My parents were really supportive, loving people (who kind of hated each other, but it's cool), and there's a lot of stuff I couldn't have faced after they passed away without having had that support for so long. At the same time, Mal's parents aren't perfect. I go back and forth on whether they're technically coddling her, seeing as she's 25 already, but then I figure they're doing their best since she's a werewolf. You can't exactly push your daughter to bigger and better things if it means she might freak out and maul someone. And she does get out and work, and run the cafe, and she's partial owner, so I figure...it's the best possible outcome for the amount of knowledge they have currently. This comic is called "How to be a Werewolf," so I figure they'll all get there eventually. I really enjoyed drawing this page. I'm trying to see things in my head more as I think I would compose shots if I were directing it as a movie, and then I try and translate all that into whatever my layout is going to be. Drawing her mom in the middle panel damn near killed me though. It doesn't seem that complicated, but she's sitting in one direction, her body is turned, her head is turned...it's a mess. But I think I mostly won that battle. Somewhat related, I got my new tablet in the mail! I won it on ebay. I got the newest Wacom Intuos Pro in the medium size. It's weird! I'm used to working on a little tiny, terribly old tablet. I think I kind of prefer the size of the small tablets, but I haven't worked on a bigger tablet since college, so I just need to get used to it. I'm definitely noticing a bit of improvement when I color. I haven't done much drawing yet (I drew the palm tree!) with the new tablet, but man, it'll be a learning curve. I'm so used to my little tablet. I need to screw around with this one to be able to make nice lines again.