9

Justin: This shouldn't come as a surprise to longtime admirers of our work, but isolation is a theme with which Jon and myself constantly find ourselves enamored.

Jon: Certainly not, I have to say! It seems that our little darling has grown before our eyes from a critically hailed well-kept secret to a veritable cottage industry, really.

Justin: But you must agree then, that at its core, The Hangin' Out Gang is less of a vehicle to peddle a quick one-off laugh, and is more of a complex human case study. To that end, I feel this strip encompasses the underlying theme of the comic better than any we'd done prior. The nature of man is an anomaly. We're seeking a means of constant social interaction, yet at the same time battling the rigors of inner depravity

Jon: That raises the question: Is The Hangin' Out Gang about the things we want? Or the things we need! It's, it's really a fascinating question to ask. [harmonizes Twilight Zone theme] Noo noo noo noo noo noo noo noo! [laughs]

Jon: Oh!  Side note!  The youngster wearing the Miami Hurricanes hat in the third panel was a mute, we believed, but he was quite gifted.  Every day at precisely 2:13 PM, he'd ask our chef for a pair of crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Curiously enough, he did not eat them, but rather retired to his trailer.  On our crew's final day on-set at Brown University in November, we were invited to his trailer where we found the sandwiches affixed to the wall.  They spelled out "I MISS YOU MOTHER".  Extraordinary.