1 Ophelia: Morning, Mercutio.
1 Mercutio: Morning, Ophelia. Do anything interesting on the weekend?
2 Ophelia: I went to a park and climbed a willow tree growing aslant a brook. The branch snapped and I fell into the water.
3 Mercutio: Gosh! You could have drowned in the water!
3 Ophelia: Oh, no. I'm like a creature native and indued unto that element.
4 Mercutio: What?
4 Ophelia: I'm a very good swimmer.

I have an interesting story to tell about something in this strip, but as it turns out I've scheduled this comic in the rotation before the comic which inspired this one, so I don't want to talk about it just yet. You'll have to wait a few days.

My comic writing procedure is to write batches of comics, usually two or three strips in each theme, totalling about 20 comics, all to be photographed in one big photography session, because it's more efficient to photograph multiple strips while I have all of the LEGO sets out than to do them individually. I'll write 2 or 3 Fantasy strips, then go on to Space strips, and so on. The strips aren't published in that order though. Only after writing the whole batch do I decide what order they'll be queued up for publication. Two Fantasy strips will never be published in a row (barring some special circumstance), so other strips that I've written later end up inserted between them.

But sometimes there is cross-pollination of ideas between the themes. I'll get some concept stuck in my head for one writing session, and it inspires strips in two or more different themes. But because of the shuffling of publication order compared to writing order, sometimes a strip that inspired another strip appears in the publication stream after the strip it inspired.

This is the case with this strip. It was inspired by another strip in a different story theme, which you won't see for a few days.

Bonus Internet points to anyone who can correctly identify (a) what theme the inspiring strip is, and (b) what aspect of this strip was inspired by it. Speculate wildly in the forums, or by contacting me directly.