1 {scene: deep in the labyrinth}
1 Ginny: I hate to say this gentlemen, but this labyrinth is more cunningly designed than I thought. We shouldn't have gone on with no thread.
2 Erwin: Fraulein Dr Smith? Would you like to have dinner with me sometime?
3 Ginny: We may be lost in here forever! Doomed never to see another sunrise! And you ask me to have dinner with you?!
4 Erwin: {lifting a lunchbox} I brought sandwiches...
4 Ginny: I don't like gherkins...

You asked for it, so here it is!

I wanted to avoid the obvious final panel punchline:

Erwin: I have nothing to lose now.

So I went for something a bit more surreal. And then when I was putting the strip together I initially had no response scripted for Dr Smith, but thought that it would be even funnier if she actually got excited by the idea of sandwiches. I considered:

Dr Smith: Oooh!

and

Dr Smith: Oooh! What sort?

I asked someone which sounded better, and he suggested twisting things again to avoid what were really quite obvious punchlines from Dr Smith, by making her enthusiastic about the sandwiches but also bossy enough to insist that she only likes certain types of sandwiches. He suggested:

Dr Smith: I don't like mustard.

Which was cool, but then I realised this was a good place to insert the inherently funny word "gherkin".

This is the sort of creative process I go through for quite a few of the strips.

Last time I explained a strip in this much detail, I got complaints from some readers saying I spoiled the strip. So if I spoiled it for you, sorry. I like to explain things sometimes, and I'd be stupid if I tried to please everyone all the time.

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2014-02-13 Rerun commentary: Ultimately, I really make these comics to please myself. The rest of you are just along for the ride.

Sorry if that sounds a bit callous, but I think that's the best approach for someone to take with a creative work. If you try to please other people, then you'll never be happy with what you've done.