NICK: Hey, Mo, how come we haven’t been in the strip for a while?
LABEL: Nick the Squirrel
LABEL: Mo the Bat
MO: I dunno. Perhaps we were just a device used by an inexperienced caroonist to comment on topics that couldn’t be placed in the context of the main characters.
MO: Perhaps now the cartoonist has had time to develop his characters and his craft, and can express himself fully through Johnny, Ben, etc. We’ve become “nonessential workers” so to speak.
NICK: Well, PERHAPS we shouldn’t have peed in the editor’s COFFEE that day…