1 Death of Inhaling Hatmaking Chemicals: Hi’ve been thinkin’, guvs. We need to get hourselves some legal representation.
2 Death of Inhaling Hatmaking Chemicals: We doesn’t know nuffink about legal proceedings.
3 Death of Choking on a Giant Frog: Where are we going to find a lawyer who will be happy working with a bunch of skeletons?
4 Devil’s Receptionist: Hello, you’ve reached Hell. Please hold.

I may have gone a little overboard with the Photoshop fire rendering effect. Or at least I thought I might have. To cut a short story long... :

Originally I didn't have any plans for flames anywhere in this strip. But when I was assembling it, I thought the standard Infinite Featureless Plane could use a bit of decoration to indicate that it's actually Hell and not just the usual Infinite Featureless Plane of Death. What, I thought, could I add to make it look more like Hell? Tortured souls? People being mown down by a giant pair of ears wielding a knife blade?

Those might have been difficult, but as described recently, Photoshop has added a handy flame rendering tool. So I threw some flames in the background.

Then when doing the text, I had to decide what colour speech bubble to use for the (literal) Receptionist From Hell. I felt a normal pastel colour wouldn't quite suit, so I went for a fully saturated red with a hint of orange.

And then I was thinking, "You know, that could use some flames too!" And here we are. Although that's not the end of the story...

I was looking at the result, and the thought occurred to me: Perhaps I might have overdone it a tad?

So I turned to a couple of my friends and showed them the strip and asked if the flames on the speech bubble were too much. They both opined that it wouldn't do to do it too often, but in small doses it would not be terrible.

Would not be terrible.

So. Being a person of the opinion that over the top is just about perfect, I decided to leave it. I hope you enjoy it. And if you don't, don't worry, I won't be using it much. Maybe.

To conclude this story, I should remind you that this isn't the first time I've made a flaming speech bubble effect. The fire elemental that Kyros met had them too. Although that was a simpler and more cartoony effect created using Photoshop's Liquify filter and approximately ten minutes of work per panel.