That may be the first ever cartoon set on the Naughtyless, which at that point didn’t have a name, and probably not a captain either. Cap’n Rehab came later. Here’s how it came about…

I found a press board ring at a craft store, and decided it would make a good porthole. I painted it gray, put some aquarium-print scrapbook paper behind it, and stuck it to one of my stock walls. I already had those gray archways, and they had kind of an old-school submarine feel to them, so I went with those.

Around the same time, I found the little dart-shaped thumbtacks seen here, and had made a dart board for them (a cork drink coaster found in a dollar store with a printed picture of a real dartboard glued to the front), and the joke kind of grew from that.

The water is all photo edited in. If you look behind the cascading stream, you’ll see a tiny model of Jules Vern’s Nautilus, from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It came from a Jules Vern action figure play set (6″ scale) that I picked up for cheap at a liquidator at some point. I put it in to offer a subtle suggestion of what the exterior of the sub might look like. Of course, the Naughtyless didn’t HAVE an exterior until I built the model gearing up for Minions at Work 2.0.