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1. about 11 hours ago on Working Daze

   John and Kyle covered that years ago.

2. about 11 hours ago on Working Daze

   There will always be room for his swivel chair.

3. about 11 hours ago on Working Daze

   Actually, Ed has stayed overnight, and straight through weekends, many times.

4. about 19 hours ago on Working Daze

   Ed just made sure to ask for no snorers.

5. about 19 hours ago on Working Daze

   That was TIME’s take on it, in 2008. A lot of comic characters have had props. There was a strip back in the 60s called SUPER DUPER, by Bill Kresse. The main character, a building superintendent, almost always had a plunger under his arm. Even when he dressed for a fancy occasion.

6. about 19 hours ago on Working Daze

   Almost as big as one, though…

7. 1 day ago on Working Daze

   The very first time I drew it, Rita was feeling out of place along the other VPs. Just as a subtle way of underscoring that, they all have coffee and bagels while she alone has water and a muffin. But in the first panel I drew, she has coffee.

   After that, the decision was made to make the water a regular feature, due to observation of en exec who looked like Rita carrying it, and a piece in TIME about the bottled water phenom.

8. 2 days ago on Working Daze

   As I said, the reason seems kind of mundane. It’s no deep meaning at all, and I’ve told this before, but we do get new readers.

   So, to catch up: My take on Rita is loosely based on a woman at a company where I was temping. She occasionally wore a suit just like Rita’s, and her hair was done the way I drew Rita’s in my first few panels of June 2008. And she carried bottled water. At about the same time I started, I read a sidebar in TIME about why professional women tend to carry bottled water. The article proposed that it often was a fashion accessory. For Rita, I pictured it as a security thing, a low level talisman with no real power.

   So, it’s not about sneaking alcohol, as some readers have guessed. And it’s not one single magical bottle. They’re disposable, environmentally UN-friendly bottles, one after another. We’ve seen her closet full of unopened bottles, and her wastebasket overflowing with empties.

   That’s what it was. The reason Rita has the bottle water was: observation of a real life model, and a piece in TIME.

9. 3 days ago on Working Daze

   You have the time right (although it was the final few days of Spring.)

10. 3 days ago on Working Daze

    In my first week, she was promoted from department manager to VP. Sometimes it’s been fuzzy- even before then- just how high up the ladder she is. Some gags have read as if she personally owns runs the entire company. Then we remember that she has a lot of bosses above her. Later this week, we’ll see her bellyaching about that again.

    One of the things I brought to the table was to give her more depth. She was often a caricature of ‘evil for the sake of being evil.’ Sure, that’s an easy laugh for readers who think “Oh yeah, that’s my boss all right!” But I wanted to explore the idea that she’s obtuse, unaware. That she’s fixed on being in charge as an end in itself, that she lacks further goals, and has no idea how she effects others. Like a manager I had once, who would bark at anyone who stopped to scratch an itch, but then sat on her desk and announced that she wasn’t going to pretend to be busy when there was nothing to do. For me, she was a model for Rita.