This scenario of two animals (wolves or bears) is my personal version of the stock trope of a psychiatrist couch or desert island. Kinda like the people sitting at a bar, it's an Alaskan take on an iconic and stereotypical setup. Though I did delete the cartoon blood & guts so as to preserve the PG rating.
On the one hand, charging by the hour, or getting compensation for the amount of time spent on a piece, is largely irrelevant when one draws cartoons, at least the black & white line art. Because that really doesn't take much time at all, and is only a part of the process when one takes into consideration the idea-generation, the doodling and sketching and penciling and coloring and formatting. Indeed the truism response to "how long did it take you to draw that" "all of my life" ie you are paying me for my talent and experience, not the physical amount of time taken making the panel. But to hell with that when the laborious (comparatively speaking) method of coloring using colored pencils. No solvents or even blending stumps were used, just painstaking building up of layers with meticulous hatching + cross-hatching techniques. Taking this into consideration easily doubles the usual piece of an original, should it ever be offered for sale. Right now it lives in a demo portfolio to show Intermediate students the range of possibilities while experimenting with different mediums.
A significant part of who I am is a direct result of the many miles over many, many months and years spent mountaineering about Alaska. Though I packed a tent the majority of these excursions, every so often it would be a pleasant respite to indulge in the relative fruits of civilization and take shelter in a public use cabin. Aside from reading the log books, there would usually be other artifacts left behind in the cupboards, like the immortal MRE's, or boxes of mac + cheese, packets of ramen and powdered milk. Kinda like the backwoods ethic of leaving behind some supplies like cut wood so as to pass along a tradition that might just save someone's life, if not ease an emergency situation.
This panel actually required an above-average amount of research, and reading up on each respective item's history was illuminating. In retrospect I admit the glaring hole of not representing perhaps the most symbolic example of such victuals: pilot bread.
Lastly, as a pun on the official SPF rating system for suntan lotions + an old favorite sauce, though these days I opt for traditional Worcestershire sauce in lieu of the unfortunately corn syrupy stuff.
And a keen eye will identify the hat-tip to a regional delicacy which I dearly miss from my residencies in the south: the culinary splendor of mustard-based bbq sauce. Hence the conflicting contrast of color that'll confuse most of the readers in this neck of the woods, especially seeing as how we no longer have a Piggy Wiggly.
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