Love At First Flight

A comic strip in 10 panels. A fight attendant greets Franky Banky as he boards a flight. Welcome aboard, sir. She says. Seat 15 A. Franky Banky stutters a thank you. In the following panel, Franky Banky is searching for his seat. 7… 9… 11… 13… He finds it in the third panel. !5… He thinks to himself, will this be the flights where I sit next to a – when suddenly, in the next panel, he discovers a beautiful girl sitting in the seat next to his. In the next pane, he thinks to himself I wonder if she’s single? In the next panel he is worried. What if I stutter? As much as I’m ok with it, I just don’t want to stutter now. He gets an idea in the next panel. Hey, I can impress her with fearless stuttering! He imagines her saying to him ooooo you are so confident facing stigma. Let’s get married when we land!. In the next panel, Franky Banky says to the girl, looks like we will be neighbours! She replies in the following panel, ha ha yes. Franky Banky thinks to himself, now to charm her with my confident stuttering! But before he could say anything, in the next panel, she says, I’m pen pen pen pennnnnelop. And I stuff stuff stutter!

Author’s commentary

The dream all single men have when boarding a flight – to sit next to a beautiful single girl. This was on my mind as I prepared for my trip to STAMMFest in August 2024. Would this be the flight I meet her?

Drawing this comic strip also brought back the memory of flying home from the National Stuttering Association annual conference that took place in Fort Worth in 2011. The Canadian women’s volleyball team was on the same flight. In fact, they all sat together across from me. And sitting right in the middle of all of them was one lucky guy.

I thought to myself how awesome it would have been if I was that guy. And not just for the obvious reasons but also I was on a post stuttering conference high full of self-confidence!

August 2, 2024

An illustration of the author standing next to a pile of sketchbooks. Franky Banky is sitting on top reading one of the books. Ti-Ger is sneaking around the bottom.