In SECURITY

***in SECURITY*** is a B&W comic strip with occasional Sunday comics in color about the trials and joys that come with married life and other relationships. The title refers to two of the characters working in security at a company as well as the insecurities that can come with relationships.

At its center are Sam and Sedine Kilgarriff, newly-married just before 2017. He's more laid-back, a good cook and a night guard at Very Big Corp. She's a high-energy, stay at home housewife whose forays into the workforce have been varied and often short-lived.

Across the street and one house over is Roy Buxton and his family. He's a prankster that loves to bait and needle his cousin Sedine, and is Sam's co-worker. Charlene runs her nature photography business from her home and raises their two daughters, Michaela and Gabby.

Renting the other half of Sam and Sedine's duplex is Ellie Gardner, an old girlfriend of Sam's from college. Manager of the Cell-Your-La-La cellphone store, she lived with just her cat Ow. After her marriage to Hank Durum (a.k.a., "the Hubbs"), he moved in with her.

After six years on December 9, 2022, the main five-year storyline concluded with the finale of the Supper Bowl. (The extra year was due to real-world events delaying production.) The following day, the main cast said farewell, but Hubbs reminded them and the readers that *in SECURITY* was moving to a twice a week publishing schedule. Shortly thereafter, new comics began appearing on Webtoon, while reruns starting at the beginning were published on GoComics.

## Publications

The first compilation of the comic strips, *"She's Sed," He Said.* was released on July 9, 2018. It includes the comics for the first eighteen months, from the start of the series through June 30, 2018.

The second book is "Hey, Sam!", covering July 2, 2018 through January 6, 2020. The developing relationship between Hank Durum and Ellie Gardner occupies about a third of the book.

The third book is "Thumb Life", running from January 7, 2020 through February 5, 2021. This book also includes 20 releases from *You've Gotta Be Kitten Me!!!*

A fourth book is due in 2023. At 500 pages, it will have almost the same number of pages as the first three books combined.

Story arc titles in the books may be slightly different than online titles.

## Connection to *Kitten Me*

In the world of *You've Gotta Be Kitten Me!!!*, set about 20 years in the future, all of the felines were changed into cat people when a comet passed by Earth. One theory of how it happened is Gabby made a wish on the comet and it came true. Characters and references from *in SECURITY* and *You've Gotta Be Kitten Me!!!* have appeared in the other's comic strip.

As of early 2022, exactly how much of a connection exists between the two comics is yet to be revealed. Also in 2022, a related comic called *Katzen-Jammer!* premiered, focusing on two of the "Kitten Me" characters, Jack and Walter.

*For more information, see You've Gotta Be Kitten Me!!!.*
## Background

The series is promoted as being made by Bea R. since she created and designed the main characters herself, but it is produced as a team effort with her husband ("Mr. Husband"), who provided some input into the characters.

Back in 2010, Bea had only created individual characters. Mr. Husband suggested using them for a comic strip. Work began on updating the appearance and background of the characters, and creating a new character nicknamed "Hubbs" for the comic.

*in SECURITY* debuted on January 2, 2017 on GoComics. It is also available on the Tapas and WebToons sites where the story arc titles are provided and the comic strip panels are split apart to make them easier to read on a mobile device. The Tapas site combines several comics into one page that showed an entire story arc (or into two or three parts), but stopped being updated in January 2021. The main difference is the Webtoon and Tapas releases are at a larger size, making it easier to pick up on small details.

On February 1, 2020, Bea R. announced via Sedine in a color comic that the series was going on a five week hiatus to "recupperate" after four years of non-stop work without a proper vacation or break. In the comments, she stated comics, sketches and illustrations available through Patreon would not be affected. New comics resumed on March 10th.

## Creation process

Details about how the comic strip is created were provided in a Q&A post on the Tapas website. With the exception of final touch-up and coloration, it is an entirely hand-drawn process. In summary, the artwork is created as follows:

1. Mr. Husband draws rough sketches on full-size sheets of paper, based on the ideas they've come up with.
2. Bea uses a lightbox built into her drawing table so she can transfer the roughs into more refined drawings on paper laid on top of the roughs.
3. Any changes Bea makes are discussed for approval or revision.
4. Bea makes a new drawing using finer graphite pencils.
5. Mr. Husband draws in the final lines using Nib pens and black india waterproof ink.
6. Halftones are applied, final cleanup is performed, and other elements that are prepared separately may be pasted onto the page.

In July 2021, Bea R. announced via her Patreon account that the series will continue into a sixth year but would transition to an all-digital process. The release schedule may also change, depending on if full digital production speeds up the drawing process.

## Official sites

### Comics

* GoComics: Published Monday to Saturday in newspaper format with occasional Sunday comics until December 2022. In January 2023, the comics began repeating from the beginning. The link takes you to the overview for the current day's comic.
* Webtoon: Rearranges the comic strip panels into a vertical format at a larger size for easier reading on mobile devices. Link takes you to the list of comics with their titles, such as "Cellular Seoul", with the most recent comic listed first. Initially, the comics were grouped together under a single arc title and were published a few days apart, but eventually, the comics were published daily and the titles adjusted to add "pt 1" or something similar onto them.
         In January 2023, Webtoon became the home for new *in SECURITY* comics that run on a twice-weekly schedule.
* Tapas: Presented the comics in the same format at Webtoon, but collected several comics together for the major story arc they are a part of, with releases occurring when at least three strips can be presented together. Link takes you to the first story arc. When you reach the bottom, you can keep scrolling to load in the next story arc page.
         The final update on Tapas was the "On thin ice" storyline from January 2021 but was released in May 2021.
* Sunday comics on Tapas. Final update was "Lost in translation" on November 17, 2019.

Both WebToon and the main Tapas site provide extra content like bonus cartoons and Q&A sessions. In one instance, a few comics were only available on Tapas and not on Webtoon.

### Merchandise

* Ko-fi (coffee donation site)
* Esty (pins, buttons and stickers)
* Redbubble (mugs, pillows, closing, phone/iPad cases, and much more)
* Storenvy (currently offline, had signed books, pins, buttons and stickers for *in SECURITY* and *You've Gotta Be Kitten Me!!!*)

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Mr. Husband's wild Q&A Ride!, Q&A post on *in SECURITY* creation process, April 9, 2018
2. ↑ Q&A-in the beginning there was..., Q&A on beginnings of the comic, Tapas, March 25, 2018