I’ve been wanting to write a palindromic episode for a few years but until a few weeks ago I had no idea what it was going to be about.

For some reason, a lot of Brudders ideas come to me when I’m in the bathroom. My daughter was brushing her teeth when I noticed that the words ‘Sparkle Fun’ on her tube of toothpaste spelled backwards is ‘nuf! Elk raps. That seemed like a good place to start.

Yeah, I know this is a pretty weird one. An earlier version made more sense grammatically but it was one letter short of a true palindrome so I had to re-work it.  To me, Sparkle Elk’s ‘rap’ came out sounding vaguely sociopolitical but try not to read too much into the song. Honestly, I’m not that clever.

Here’s the original concept rough for the strip:

And the sketch pass:

Transcript

Panel 1

Sergeant: Sparkle Elk raps?

Panel 2

Yo! I’m a deer breed, yeh!
Yaks deliver Llama,
Ewe am all reviled. ‘s’kay.
Hey, Deer Breed am I. Oy!

Panel 3

Toulllie: Sparkle Elk raps!