Well, I promised a "how the toon evolved" for this weekend and here it is, from final image (at top) to iniital one (at bottom).
Let's start with the first two. Basically the same images, but far different in arrangement and size. In my original take (the 2nd pic) all the different players are roughly the same size and simply inhabit space. In the top (final) version they've been moved so that the eye is directed from one to the other, ending at Percy, our protagonist. The first we see, with his body projecting out from the background and silhouetted against the sky, is the farmer, dragging a very unhappy pig along. This sets the stage immediately – no need to wonder what's going on. Next we see pig number 2, obliviously slurping down his swill. And then finally Percy. The images work with the title to produce the punchline, a big improvement over the jumble of my first conception (middle pic).
And my first idea? The same basic concept but in it the only pig besides Percy is the fat one laughing at him. The danger of the farmer is only implied – the reader has to stop and consider what's going on. Is the fact the pig is laughing the point or is it something else? In addition, Percy looks worried. Makes sense since he's trying to avoid becoming porkchops but it loses out in comparison to his expression in the final version – one of (ultimately unjustified) cockiness. Seeing a smug know-it-all get their comeuppance is fertile grounds for comedy.
The first version is cuter and doesn't really have so much of an edge. The final version retains the same joke but makes the stakes more obvious. A bit darker. And a bit funnier. The old concept of "when you take a bad fall it's tragedy, when someone else does it's comedy."
What happened from start to finish is that I tooned the oldest version and let it sit. And when I got within a week of releasing it I was able to stand back and assess if it really hit all the buttons. My conclusion was that it didn't and the middle image was the result of my changes. Then, an analysis of the new version made me realize that the essential idea was good but that it could be punched up a level. And that's whe ultimately brought us to the final version.
And just to go back to the VERY beginning – it all started with a pencil sketch:
Interesting, eh? It's often a winding road to the final toon.
Much appreciation for the nice walkthrough.
The rearrangement that made the last changes seems fairly self-evident, at least in hindsight, as soon as composition is considered. But the improvement from the 2-pig model seems like it would be harder to come up with. I'm not surprised it took a while, but it was definitely a good insight.
Had you considered keeping the laughing pig in the final sketch? I think the laziness is a fair substitute for the gluttony, and there is the added initial irony of the laughing pig with his back to the farmer. (Twisted ultimately by the smug Percy's comeuppance.) But the reason it occurs to me to ask is that I think you might have gotten away with briefer text had you showed a pig laughing rather than stating it. Oh and if the point was to draw the eye top-to-bottom (which totally works), shouldn't the text be underneath?
I don't know, just a thought. I liked the comic. You just succeeded now in getting me to think about how it could be different.
No, I hadn't considered keeping the laughing pig, basically because I wanted to start afresh rather than revise. You're right that lazy and gluttonous both could work.
The balance of text to graphic is always a challenge. Almost always, fewer words are better. In this case I wasn't actually 100% satisfied with the wording but, obviously, I couldn't decide how to pare it down further. The reason the text is above is because readers usually fixate on the words and only after they're read them do they then look at the picture. So putting the words at the bottom wouldn't necessarily draw their eyes across the image but rather force them to start from the bottom and work up (more natural then glancing back up to the top). So having the words at the start ensures the eye travels along in the "right" manner.
I'm happy to hear the post struck a chord for you!
Be careful not to remove all thinking on the part of the reader, it tends to make a toon too juvenile for adults.