Hmm... Not sure how I feel about that. I'm not the world's best hand-letterer, but I feel like the only one left and someone has to uphold the old traditions.

I'll freely admit that one of my weaknesses is leaving enough whitespace around foreground objects (including non-ballooned text) to delineate them from backgrounds. Maybe I'll go back with my whiteout pen and clear it up a little.
I think I even looked at that strip and wondered if people would miss the "Ow." Then I think I reasoned that the visual made the joke too. I also toyed with putting those little cartoon "pain stars and squiggles" coming out of her wrist, but somehow it seemed like slightly more cheese than ideal. I toy with a lot of little things.
It's best no one sees me wrack my brain for half an hour deciding if two dashes or an ellipses makes an unfinished statement funnier.

What do others think? Would you rather Nukees have the unique charm of hand-lettering or actually be readable?