I wanted to give various people pets in the comic. John has a cat, Leeloo. George has a plant, Junior... There was a comic where in passing George stated he was going to buy Zoey a hamster. I wasn't sure if that was where I wanted to go with her, but when I came up with this story arc, I thought I could address the start of it with the death of said hamster that hasn't ever been shown. I'm a cruel bastard that way. There was some discussion about what the hamster would have been named and H.P. Fuzzcraft worked the best. This strip was something I had to think about for a bit. I wasn't sure if people would still like Lizzy if she acted like a jerk, but I decided that girls can be jerks too, so in the end I went with it. She's not always a jerk, just like John and George aren't always jerks... she just has the ability. Plus John was being a jerk first.