Okay, this is one where I figured out the punchline right away, and had trouble working backward. Originally, it’d be the writer at his editor’s office, the editor praising the new draft, and suggesting maybe the writer hired a ghost writer…? That’s a long way around the setup for just two panels. The first panel, it’s a little more relatable to be in line for an autograph and asking that person a question. But how to get from A to B? The writer suggests, on his own, as unsolicited deflection (and no other reason), that he didn’t hire a ghost writer. BUT in the next panel…! GHOSTS! WRITING!

Of course, with two small panels, and how little space I gave myself to work with after the dialog, there’s not a lot of room in either to set up location. You get in panel 1 that they’re in a bookstore? There’s a sign that says “book signing today?” Then in the next panel, no wide shot of a house, we’re just in another building presumably with a staircase we see from the point of view BEHIND the desk and typewriter of the ghosts discussing their plans to haunt. You, the reader, have to do a LOT of work between those panels.

A couple people who saw it early thought it was funny, so I guess it works. I hope Scott McCloud is proud.