"Alaskan in Hell"

Appropriately enough this is one of the very few instances that a swear word has run in the print version in accordance with the newspaper's family-friendly editorial standards of social etiquette. Technically the word "Hell" can appear only if it is in reference to the actual place, and is thus capitalized. If you ever want to hear an Alaskan complain, just add some precipitation (see "cold desert") + wind, neither of which we ever get in this neck of the woods. As a transplanted upstate/western New Yorker, the phenomenon of lake-effect snow is all too familiar, and compared to our relatively benign (allbeit subzero) winters here in the Interior, it's damned heavenly.

Another item of trivia is that in the original sketchbook doodle versions of this panel, all four primary types of poofs are present: the thought bubble, the pom-pom, the frozen exhalation of breath, and lastly, the clouds themselves. All of which, except for the cloud, were edited away from the print version. Besides, in a strict interpretation of the literal, biblical sense one wouldn't see your breath up there anyways.