Dumbing of Age

Sal was the third character I redesigned for Dumbing of Age.   Joyce and Sarah were pretty easy.  They were both college students 13 years ago, so reworking them was just a menial wardrobe update.  But Sal, in her other life, was a alien-fighting superhero.  Dumbing of Age was a fresh start that had no aliens, which presented a conundrum for Sal.  What is Sal like in a world where she doesn’t have the tragic focal point that made her who she is, while still keeping her quintessentially Sal?

In Roomies! and It’s Walky!, Sal probably had the biggest variety of “outfits.”  She went through a lot of visual evolutions.  So I pulled from some of them, grabbing her jacket and her midriff shirt and her gloves, and, trying to create a “motorcycle girl” motif, I drew a homeless man.

My wife, Maggie, was all, “Dude, what the fuck.  That’s awful.”  This went on for some time.  And she was right, of course.  She helped me as we looked through Google Images of actual motorcycle-riding outfits.  She told me what had to be done.  And I did it.  Sal is Maggie’s creation.  She’s our little baby that we made together, and just like real babies, the wife did all of the actual work.

I knew there was some reason I married her!