It's rather harder in a comic. While there's a control over the passage of time in its general sense, one can't control how fast the reader reads. So I'm very glad that Mark managed to convey the fact that Benjamin was sitting on that bollard through the night.

By the way, I got a copy of Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War" for Christmas. I highly recommend it. You wouldn't think that a history book written 2500 years ago would be a page-turner of an adventure novel, but it is. And since it's long, long out of copyright, you can read it for free if you're so inclined. Thucydides was a (losing) general on the Athenian side in the war, so he had a first-hand view of a number of the events he writes of, and he was able to speak to people who were at events where he wasn't personally present.

You wouldn't think this has anything to do with webcomics, but I'm reading the book partly to have some background for the next comic. Which isn't set in Greece, nor in the ancient world.

Anywho -- hold on, hold on, somebody stop the Internet. What's that in the top of panel one? Good inking? Um, isn't it a little late in the comic to be starting with that? (Actually, I just got a brand new set of pens. It really does make a difference.)

As with the previous page, the tall spire in the Chicago skyline is not fictional. That's the Chicago Spire, formerly the Fordham Spire, which is scheduled to start construction in the middle of this year, be completed in 2010, and all told be 124 stories high, topping out at 2000 feet with the antennae and whatnot on top included. When MoS began five years or so ago, it looked like 7 South Dearborn might still be on track to be constructed downtown as a similar supertall tower, and made the odd appearance in the comic as well; let's hope this project works out a little better.