1. Using a blue (non-photographic) pencil (pic.1), I first lay out the visual idea for the gag (written and e-mailed in by Geoff Johnson, my collaborator) on a 8" x 14" sheet of bond paper (Final art is drawn larger than the printed size seen in newspapers).

2. With a HB black pencil (pic.2), I redraw the entire rough art, correcting as I go over the blue pencil lines.

3. Next, I use a medium pen nib (pic.4 & 5) with colour fast India ink (pic.8) to lay down the lettering of the dialogue and render the final art work onto a sheet of 20lb bond 8.5" x14" size paper, with the help of a light table.

4. To give the artwork the final touch I use a #2 watercolour brush (pic.6 & 7) with India ink. Mistakes are touched-up with white tempera or typewriter white-out. For the "shaded" areas, I cross-hatch with a brush, pen & ink, using no Ben-Day dots, Letratones or any mechanical or computer screens.

5. Sometimes, certain art revisions calls for replacing an area by cutting it out with a sharp X-acto (pic.3) knife and adhereing a replacement drawing to the final art , done with 3M re-movable tape. This process might save some time. Other times, it can be just as fast to redraw the strip totally from scratch.

6. The final art is scanned as bitmap at 400 dpi, B&W line art, in order to eliminate all the cut lines and left-over pencil work.

7. The digital file is then sent electronically to the syndication, The Washington Post Writers Group, from there it is distributed to newspaper and internet subscriber - clients all around the world.