I had no special communication regarding what I drew with D.C. in advance. I just was inspired by the overall story and the promise of a food fight. I suppose we were just thinking along similar lines.Derrick's fan art was strangely prophetic. And only one day in advance, too. Unless they've been in communication with one another in the past week or so...
As for the criticism of this strip, I DO think that Timulty's revised line about things being all messy seems more in character for him. Otherwise, the only real COMPLAINT I can muster is that I think this should have been two strips instead of one big strip to separate the meat of the food fight from Isolde's explaination of it to Timulty. But that's just a nit pick.