- "Seriously, why do you insist I'm smart?" (The page before the Grace quote for easy context)

- "The verbal equivalent of moving a horse" (The actual page of the Grace quote)

For an example of the instincts I do intense battle with atop rooftops on stormy nights while writing comics, I had to resist the urge to have to have Ellen clarify that there might be additional rules for official tournaments, mention "en passant" (a relatively obscure move in which you can capture a pawn that has moved two spaces as though it only moved one), and any number of other minute details that just do not matter in the context of this page and the story.

Queens, Bishops, Rooks, and Knights

I originally imagined visuals that would reference Agent Bishop (seen earlier in this arc) and Agent Knight (introduced back in Balance). I haven't an Agent Queen or Agent Rook yet, however, and I wanted emphasize the Knight being the horse.

So I settled on drawing cartoonish versions of actual chess pieces. This went roughly as one might expect with panel four, the first chess panel I sketched.

Then I sketched the queen in panel three.

All I know for sure is I wanted her to look dangerous. The rest just sort of happened.

Clever Horse

I tend to refer to anything in which something sneaky is enabled by a diversion as "velociraptor tactics," so this was pretty much inevitable. If you're unfamiliar with the first Jurassic Park movie, this might not make sense to you. I recommend watching it sometime. I am fully willing to boldly declare that, yes, it's pretty good.

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- Tuesday EGSNP