Holy snot, I never would have guessed Marc would outdo his art in the previous strip so soon. This sucker rocks!
Been lots of fantastic comments from you guys lately. You psychoanalyze these characters in a way few other readerships do. You make this worth doing. I see lots more conversation on the horizon as get closer and closer to the end of this chapter…
Don’t forget to visit Brock’s new site  over at brockheasley.com!
Wow, Marc. Wow.
By the way, anyone read the book Things Fall Apart? Read it long ago and loved it.
I’ve never read it, but I like the title.
Better question: How are they gonna get back home now?
Bus?
I’ve never read Achebe’s book. But I have read Yeats:
…Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
— The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats
I think the last two lines of that stanza are particularly applicable here.
Yes, that’s the one i remember, too. Apropos.
Wow. I’ve heard the first couple of lines of that poem, but never the rest of it. The last lines are AMAZINGLY appropriate.Thanks for sharing that.
So no one noticed that he put a glowing blue crystal in his jacket….and no one is asking where is Spy Gal?
Yet.
Indeed.
i think swifty is about to let everything out of the bag. hopefully they believe him. also i get a feeling dr. rocket may have a backup plan, just in case.
Swifty would never let everything out of the bag. That could get really messy. And smelly. Oh… not that kind of bag?
You’re thinking of time traveler Swifty. This Swifty knows jack squat, lol.
So, I guess that most of the fogeys won’t still suspect that Jerry is anything but a goofy sidekick? That’s how I see Swifty’s question.
I don’t think Swifty knows yet. I think this is just more of the ‘Jerry bad’ programming he gave himself as a baby and he’s just blaming Jerry for everything that’s going on in general.
As for Captain Spectacular, the guy’s wearing pants for the first time in a long time so he’s a little off balance. Let’s not be too critical of him.
And who knows… those pants might be really tight!
Oh, gosh. I almost thought you were going to say, “And who knows… those pants might be coming off.” Nothing dirty intended, but you know what I mean. Cap and his distaste pants.
@Sam — which is more interesting: giant robot falling to pieces or a guy putting something in his pocket as he rides a collapsing robot to the ground?
@gnrrg — You’re probably right about Swifty.
The only observation I can add is — hey, Bingo Knight’s sword is just fine! That’s a quality sword!
Well, it is the division sword. It either breaks things up or gets broken up; now we know which.
Who says I never solve mysteries!? (Actually, nobody. But still…)
Hey, Brock, when the Superfogeys becomes a legacy comic, you should have Bingo Knight’s sword made and sold as a collector’s item. I know I’d buy it. Btw, awesome artwork. But what I don’t get is why Jerry is regular colors while everything else in the 2nd panel looks like it has a white wash. Is the robot glowing?
Javier, that’s just an effect to suggest something being further in the background. It has the added benefit of popping Jerry out more. This is a 2D medium, so real-life effects like that are really crucial. Robot isn’t glowing, it’s just behind him.
@Tyler: Read it like 20 years ago in college for a “World History” class.
Must not have made much of an impression, because all I remember about it is the title and which class I read it for.
Gotta admit… it’s a great title.
I wonder if Dr Rocket will speak up or go for the blackmail angle…
Great art in this strip too – I love the way the robot breaks up in a semi-modular fashion; sort of like advanced Lego… lol
And if you can tell us the Alan Moore comic we ripped off for the way the robot breaks apart… you get a gold star. (Although, I must say, I think Marc did a better job rendering it than artist Chris Sprouse.)
So is Jerry now going to pretend to be the hero who stopped that mad machine? Hmmm…
And gorgeous artwork indeed!
I think what’s probably on Jerry’s mind – besides “Hide the crystal! Oh crap oh crap oh crap!” is “Spy Gal!” Manipulative creepy stalker villain or not, I’m hoping to see him rush to find her next strip or two. Whenever Jerry gets his head on straight and can escape from the crowd to find her. As for Cap, I hope these events change him somehow instead of leave him unaffected.
Btw, the fact that the robot is crumbling to pieces (in this digital “deletion” kind of way) before it hits the ground, especially after just repairing itself, suggests to me that it is composed of nanites which are now “dying” and coming apart from one another now that the power source has been yanked, which also explains how the robot could repair itself like that. Am I right?
Attack Robot, part of the new Lego line. 🙂
Great job on the visual part of this Marc. You got to love Swifty’s approach though. Nice slight of hand there Jerry, you pocketed that Crystal with such grace coming off the top of that robot like that. I can’t wait to see how this chapter is going to conclude. What’s so great is that Captains going to come out and there’ll be nothing there and he’ll probably have a “So What’s the big deal?” calm collected attitude about it. Well that is if he runs out of coins first, the cashiers stand did just explode near him after all. Who knows Captain may have Rusty’s luck from Lapoons Vegas Vacation “Put a quarter in, won a car…” and win everyone a ride home. 🙂
[…] be. It was that failure that paved the way for Spy Gal and Jerry to fight the robot together. After defeating the robot all by himself, Spy Gal finally saw that Jerry was the man of action she was looking for and they […]