Sugar&Spike - Strip Proposal 1980s

In the 1980s, Mayer did another proposal for a Sugar & Spike comic strip. There are around seven weeks worth of daily strips, and possibly one Sunday strip, for this proposal, in various stages of completion. Most of them are fully inked, with the lettering still in pencils. Others are in rougher stages, and sometimes there are multiple versions of the the same strip, which are a nice look at the creative process.

In this strip, for example, Mayer tried the joke two ways, one with most of the baby-talk dialogue translated, and then revised to leave it as baby-talk.  I think he made the right choice.  You can also see some other changes, like in panel three where it was changed to Sugar climbing up on books to reach the sharpener.  I can't make out all the notes, but it looks like there's one sketch where Mayer's trying to work out the expression of Spike's face in the last panel. I also find it interesting that often when Mayer does strips with the baby-talk untranslated he'll note what they're saying in the margins.  I guess that was for his own benefit, to more easily make sure the expressions and body language match what they're saying.