YHMH #3 (2017 — 115th Congress

Dude has no chill.

I remember laughing when I drew this one. Jim’s was such a stress case in the beginning, and it made him one of the funniest characters early on. Beyond that, it gave him a lot of interesting room for character development, as we’ve seen lately a much more confident James Wilson. That was the whole point of making these characters such nobodies at first — to see them get their groove and rise up.

This strip also includes a mistake. I had read previously that when a new class of Senators is sworn in, the person who administers their oath of office is the current (and in this case outgoing) Vice President. I assumed the same was true of the House, only… it’s not. As you’ll see when we get to YHMH #169 and YHMH #170, the Speaker of the House is sworn in by the current and/or outgoing Dean of the House (the longest serving member of the House, regardless of party. In our world it was, until very recently, Don Young of Alaska — the person on which Don Smithfield is based). The Speaker then will turn and swear in all members of the House of Representatives in a group ceremony.