After writing yesterday’s comic, I flashed back to this flash fiction I wrote a couple years ago.It took a while to figure out how to compress 8 sentences into 4 sentences and 2 pictures, but judicious editing is another one of my talents.

I do love my fairy tales. Classic tropes and all. So much fun to deconstruct.

I don’t know that being a stepparent is as fraught as people make it out to be. Before I met The Man I dated a couple guys with kids and they all liked me very well. Most kids like me. Obviously, I have a very good relationship with my stepchildren or I wouldn’t be joking about eating them, which I also do to their faces, sometimes. It probably helps that they’re very well-behaved, but I think it’s just like any relationship. If you go into things with generosity and empathy and an open heart, you can go pretty far, and if the other person comes into it with the same qualities, you can’t fail.

At any rate, they’re too old to eat now, all adolescent and full of artificial colors and flavors. They’re more interesting as human beings, but they’re probably less sweet.

The candy house and gingerbread kids were super fun to draw. I could easily spend another 90 minutes making them look even tastier, but it’s late and today was kind of rough, physically, so I’m hoping to be asleep in less than that.