(Cartoonist’s note: I shopped Lost Key to my syndicate United Media when I first came up with it. I was anxious to produce a second strip. What was I thinking?! However, they passed. Unbeknownst to me, they had not long before canceled an under-performing strip of a very similar nature. Also, my strip really wasn’t that good.)

This cartoon is a bit dated. People besides sailors and prisoners were getting tattooed by the 80s but not as they have been the past ten years or so. The painful extravaganza described by the grizzled old tattoo artist would not raise an eyebrow today, although the tableau he describes might be thought of as a bit prosaic.
Speaking of tattoos, my generation when it was younger was very accustomed to the tattoos on our neighbors and fathers who had served in the navy during World War II. If you’re fortunate enough to have one of those old guys still around, you’ve probably noticed his tattoo is now a blue blob. Is that what all these modern tattoos are going to look like 40 years hence? I don’t raise this question to pass judgement on the tattooed, but I really have wondered this.

Speaking of things 80s, I remember my own racquetball phase, both weeks of it. And speaking of those tattoos, I’ve always heard that the body completely regenerates itself in seven years. In other words, the natural process of cell replacement eventually results in a brand new you. Researching this a bit (45 seconds, to be exact) in the process of writing this, I was not surprised to find out this isn’t exactly true. Types of cells take a lot longer than others to regenerate, and some never do. Essentially, though, there is something to the idea we get a completely new body every so often. The prospect tends to be more exciting than the reality, doesn’t it? However, given this and given the rather dynamic nature of skin cells, I wonder: Why don’t tattoos disappear?

In today’s episode, we’re finally getting to some character development, but this is about as far as it goes, I’m afraid. It was, after all, just a concept.