"How did the art get so good all of the sudden, and speaking of art, what happened between episodes 2 and 3 anyway?"

The answers to these questions, if they became generally known, could well subvert the natural order. But, since the natural order is one in which there are entire journals devoted to "Books About Aging Professors Telling Parallel Stories About Their New England Childhood and their Current Battle with Cancer/Impotence/Weltangst", perhaps it's due for a fall. The answers, then:

This episode was drawn and scripted by Holland Smith, who acts as the oxygen-absorbing lungs of the corpus of the Gentleman Scholars. If we could, we'd have him draw and script everything, ever, but as it is, at least we have this Very Fine episode.

As to the Sudden Retardation that set in apparently between episodes 2 and 3, it is enough to say that episode 3 was the first that I drew whereas episode 2 was one of the most recent, so if you like 2, just stick around for a spell and you will see its kin again, whereas if you prefer episode 3, well, then Geoff is indeed as powerful a layout wizard as I feared, and I shall have to make a note to slay him some day before he crushes the world in his Mind's Eye.

- DvL

The subtle layout trick of Episode 3 was making sure the shot to the pills was dead center.

In this episode, I hadn't quite figured out what I was doing color-wise yet, so filling in the power around the chapeau made me feel like a scrimshander.