Thanks, Rodney. Archibald is a mean, nasty parrot. Besides having his eyes poked out, his tongue was cutout and his tailfeathers were plucked... mostly he just bites. Flemm, of course, is fascinated by him and is usually the person getting bitten.
Some of my early drawings did have this overlapping eye patches, but I found it distracting and complicated... thus, the simplification. The fact that they can be mistaken for dark sunglasses, actually helps to reinforce the idea that he's blind.
Since McCrary is working about 20 to 30 strips ahead, Archibald has already been drawn into the strip as he is. I actually felt a stronger pressure to make him look like the drawn version this time out, since I was having to model it after the fact.
I've never heard that, Ken. That's a sort of clever idea, but wouldn't being robbed of depth perception be a greater problem than the momentary benefit of being able to see in the dark faster?