For Soviet Sam, the journey to this moment has been a long one. I’d encourage you to click on Sam’s name in the tags (or right here) to check out his past appearances to see the full scope of what this hug might mean to him.
Infamous Nefarious commented on Monday’s strip (which saw Sam lock eyes on this Money Man for the first time) that I HAD to give Sam this moment. I loved how forcefully he put it:
“I know this is a different Money Man? But I bet he still knows of what Sam did and his lifelong self-torment and remorse. I sincerely feel that Money Man should hug Sam and forgive him.
You should make that happen. For real. Sam needs it. Give the guy a break. Bad things are on the horizon, and this could be the last good thing that happens for him for a while. Sam deserves that redemption. Just knowing A Money Man could forgive him, even if it’s not the one he accidentally killed. Save Sam’s soul.”
This, in part, was my response:
“As a storyteller, it’s generally a bad idea to give the audience exactly what they want. As soon as you do, you break the tension and anticipation and while it may have been what the audience wanted, it wasn’t really want they needed.”
And sometimes what you need and want are the same thing. I personally love this beautiful moment and wanted to see it just as much as Infamous Nefarious (and, I’d guess, so many of you). I think Marc did a stellar job with it, so much so that I asked him to take out a scripted close-up of Sam’s face. It’s all in his shoulders and his slow fall to the ground. That’s all you need to see. We know exactly what his face looks like. That’s some incredible body language acting going on there, Marc. Kudos.
The question now is: can Sam accept this? Can you go most of a very long life living with shame and regret and then toss it aside so easily? Can we forgive ourselves after we’ve been forgiven, or is forgiving ourselves the hardest thing of all?
Don’t forget: New “Spy Gal – Captured” page this Friday!
Can we? Yes. Will we? Answer uncertain. Try again later.
The Magic 8 Ball of Forgiveness, everybody.
Didn’t know the forum rules allowed such brnilialt posts.
I am not going to kid you. A bug might’ve flown into my eye, and I had to rub it out for a while. I swear to God, it was the size of a golf ball. Yeah….. That’s what happened.
I do not feel any empowerment here. What I feel is appreciation and respect. Not for myself, mind you. Though I am appreciative of the strong consideration of my opinion. And I am glad it struck a chord with you fine gentlemen. When you write a story….. You create lives. And in order for a character to REALLY have an IMPACT with the observer/reader, they need to be treated and handled as much like living, thinking, feeling people themselves, as you yourself are. Characters should be relatable, to someone somewhere. And just about every one of your characters is. It’s a wonderful cast. Probably the most outstanding I’ve ever had the pleasure and privilege to read. But out of them all?
I identify with Sam. More than I’d like to admit. No, I haven’t killed anyone….. so relax.
But, I have lived a hard life. I’ve done things. Things I’m not proud of. Things I’ve worked hard to fix….. Some things I can never fix. I seek a redemption that I am well aware that, in cases, I do not deserve. But that is my cross to bear. I will never deny them, never hide them, never blame them on anything else. These are things I carry with me every day. And I wish to God I could have that forgiveness. Until then, I will continue to try and do right by the past. Because my past is my fault. A series of mistakes I had no intention of making, and have no intention of repeating. Giving Sam that sense of redemption, that forgiveness, even if it’s just shadow….. It gives ME hope. Stories are also supposed to inspire people. Sam is one of my heroes. Sam gives me HOPE. Maybe it’s silly to some folk, but not to me.
Sam deserves this. This is something he needed. I feel an even better Soviet Sam is going to take a step forward. Lighter, more confident, maybe even flat out more powerful, now that at least SOME of this weight has been lifted from his heart. Vegas was a big step for him, saving those folks from Donut-tron. This? Is bigger. I know he’s done a lot of good, and I can only IMAGINE the good he’s done over the course of the time skip. But, maybe now he can actually start FEELING like a HERO.
This shows me the respect and appreciation you have for Sam. I am grateful for this and that your feelings on the matter paralleled mine and those of many of your readers. This was OUSTANDINGLY presented. Perfectly executed in dialogue. I don’t think I could have written it better myself, and I’ve imagined it playing out in my head in the past. I agree. The emotion is palpable in his body language. Such sculpted expression….. If a mountain could weep, it would probably look like this. I would still love to see Sam’s face anyway. Maybe as an added extra in a future collection volume? I’ll be sure to set money aside for this one especially. I hope this gets nominated for some kind of webcomic award. This is just….. The best. You guys will be hard pressed to top it, but I know you’ll find a way eventually. BIG things coming, and foreshadowing and all that. Man….. Look at him. I am so proud and happy for Sam right now.
I think that bug is coming for my eye again.
Not to downplay the importance of what you expressed in your comment on Monday, but this strip was written weeks ago and Marc has been working on it since last week. I’m sure others are faster, but there’s no way we could turn out a strip like this in a couple of days time. I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about our turnaround time.
So that said, in a way, I suppose I was being a bit facetious on Monday in talking about what a bad idea this sort of scene might be given that’s what you–the audience–wanted. However, I do stand by what I said–giving the audience what they want is generally a bad idea. The will get bored with you real fast. But it’s not a hard and fast rule and I think you’ve got to choose the right moment where you just let the thing happen that needs to happen. Today’s strip needed to happen.
I just didn’t really understand how much until I read your comment above. First of all, I have no idea what you’re struggling with but my heart goes out to you. In my personal belief system, forgiveness is possible. It’s essential. I’ve experienced its cleansing power and there’s nothing like it. It’s a favorite theme of mine, and that’s probably why it keeps popping up in one form or another in this story, with Sam perhaps being the true exemplar.
All of which is to say thank you for your candidness, and your enthusiasm for this story. Recently, I had to describe what SuperFogeys is to some friends who’d never read it and who aren’t comics fans. I described it as “stupid.” They kindly corrected me, saying they didn’t think it was stupid at all. I corrected them back, saying superheroes in a nursing home is pretty stupid, but I like the challenge of making it NOT stupid and building weighty themes into a place where you don’t expect it. It’s just immensely satisfying to me when people like you really get it. Thank you.
You’re a good dude, I appreciate your empathy. And I can appreciate that this was already in the works. 🙂 Believe me, I don’t feel responsible for this at all. I can also appreciate not constantly dancing to the tunes of your readers. Believe me. If it was CONSTANTLY predictable? It wouldn’t be any fun. Art imitates life, and LIFE is unpredictable. But, life doesn’t suck or have to suck all the time either.
You do, quite regularly, deliver an exciting and engaging story. And yeah, once in a while? It’s pretty darned fun for the next issue to make everyone double-take and go “AHH-WHAAAAA?” all bug-eyed and stuff. But, and I think I’ve remarked on this before in the past…. I’ve been seeing a trend the last year or so, with authors seeming to be out to just blatantly crap on their characters AND their readers by association. It’s like they’re trying to follow along the vein of similar stories like ‘The Walking Dead’ and ‘Game of Thrones’, where characters that seem vital to the story and become beloved by their audience just get the shaft again and again and again. OR, even worse, are just made to suffer a sudden and violent and meaningless end, while the author will sit back and giggle like, “Welp, that’s just how it goes I guess? How’d you like THAT, pretentious reader scum?”. And that kind of sudden plot twisting, while just as unpredictably exciting, is also incredibly aggravating and annoying when the screw-jobs keep happening so often as to become almost predictable. It gets OLD. And the callous nature I perceive of such continued story-telling tactics makes me feel that the writer neither respects nor has to respect their followers, simply taking for granted their own popularity will recover for the loss of a few.
Giving this to Sam, no matter HOW premeditated, also shows to me that you have deep and genuine respect and appreciation for your readers. We/they deserved to see this happen. It’s like a cookie or a medal for years of fidelity and devotion. And it’s SOOOOOOO tasty and shiny and pretty. 😀 This was worth the wait, and I thank you for making it happen. Truly and deeply.
This is a big, badass job you guys do. And you do it well. Not one person I’ve turned on to Superfogeys has been disappointed. Now? Let’s start trying to redeem the Atomic Fly for being upside down all the time! He deserves a normal point of view!
Wow, I never realized the important of Monday’s strip until you pointed it out. I must say this is a BIG Moment for Soviet Sam’s character and with this part of his own life as a close….I do wonder where he’ll go now ? 🙁
Still a truly emotional moment for today’s strip. Bravo to both of you. 🙂
Thank you, Marcus. Sam has some other stuff to deal with going forward. There’s the whole issue of forgiving himself (I’m sure this helps), his forbidden attraction to Spy Gal, and the matter of his eye patch. Why the eye patch? There’s a story there and I still want to tell it.
I seldom post, though I always read, but this… This strip is PERFECT.
Wow, thank you, Chip. Always love when you do chime in.
And now that Money Man has them in fireball formation…
Fireball formation??
They’re close enough to each other that a single fireball could hit all of them. At least, I assume that’s what he means.
Is that…Dictator Tot I see?
According to the tags, it is. Right below Atomic Fly. Is he just flying upside down? That guy is awesome!
I’m glad Marc worked Atomic Fly in there. He’s one of my faves, too.
All the weepy feels right now. Good job, guys. Seriously; well done.
Thanks, Heidi!
I got chills. And might have cried a little.
Warm blanket. Tissue. That’s my prescription.
I want to say some stuff on this strip, but I would just be repeating Infamous Nefarious. I made some unfixable mistakes (at least the only hurt myself) and I relate to Soviet Sam. Just heartwarming to see him gettng some closure on this.
Aside from that, the detail on the last panel is awesome. Dictator Tot being her lovely self, Atomic Fly doing who knows what, Percy with his look of childlike admiration upon seeing CS.
This is just a perfect feel-good comic made with love.
Codus, you guys!
Thanks, Cyrian! Marc really did a top notch job with the lineup at the end and it’s always nice to see his efforts recognized. My heart goes out to you and what you’re dealing with as well.
Since you’re in a giving mood . . . Yeah, it’d send a dangerous precedent to take requests twice in a orw, but now that I think about it, it’d be wicked funny if someone did draw this. Two strips ago, I gave my version of what the Hulk would be like in his senior years. I posted it after you probably weren’t looking at that strip’s comments anymore. So here again for your amusement/eye-rolling:
I always wondered what the Hulk would look like in his senior years. I imagine an über-strong, although decrepit-looking, green giant with a walker, a bad back, Alzheimer’s disease, and the biggest pair of Depends known to mankind. Ain’t NOBODY wants to clean up Hulk leavings!
Haha! How did I miss that? As I stated in my response to Infamous Nefarious above, we really didn’t take a request as this strip has been in the works for quite a while, but your idea here is duly noted. I don’t know about the Depends, but everything else sounds about right.
But, but, “Betty, Hulk make boom-boom! BETTY!”. And then a walker goes through the wall and Hulk is on the floor yelping in pain, having put his back out.
Well, thanks for humoring me, at least.
I find the comment in World Trademark Review very suprsiring. If the US manufacture of goods for a copyright holder amounted to a first sale (to the copyright holder?), the doctrine would equally apply to domestic right holders exporting their goods abroad – but we know that the first sale doctrine does not apply to foreign sales of exported goods. The first sale doctrine is an exhaustion rule – it is only a sale by the right holder that engages it.
I didn’t get that feeling like others did. Which is kinda odd because I do love Soviet Sam.
But I think that in the end this situation is not as important to me as Sam’s own inner feelings. Because that side of human mind is more interesting and touching to me.
But I will come back to this strip some day and maybe I’ll see it in different light. Maybe after we have seen Sam’s reaction to Moneys Man speech.
And maybe then I will get my moneys worth of his speech! (This is just such an easy and horrible pun that I had to made it!)
I think that part of my reaction can summed in this: “bad self-esteem is bad self-esteem even if it’s covered in hugs.” A sentence that I wrote in a very long email which went to very deep issue. And yet that sentence wasn’t in that part where I wrote about the deep issue. But I think that it kinda sums up my view.
We can give hope to the another person and give directions to the better things, but it’s the person’s own view about him- or her- or anyself that matters the most in the end.
But it wasn’t bad self-esteem; it was supreme guilt over taking a life that couldn’t defend itself, and it was being haunted by that guilt and allowing it to rule your life.
Adding: Basically, what Sam needed was forgiveness, and nobody involved in that day was willing to do that or realized that Sam needed it. See Jerry’s reaction when Sam walks into his hospital room, see some of the barbs Swifty threw his way. So the abyss remained inside and festered.
Ask any DUI driver who has killed someone and understands remorse. Ask them if what they’re feeling is something that they can get over by simply improving the way they see themselves.
Sam got an unexpected opportunity: Meeting the person you accidentally snuffed out and asking their forgiveness. He needed this.
I would say that Sam does have bad self-esteem but he has it because of the reasons you said and the reasons I know he does. I just said the bad self-esteem thing because it related to thing what I just write down in my own letter (which subject was other wise very different kind).
And I commented here what I commented because while I do understand this is a very important part of Sam’s personal story, I’m more interested in which way Brock will take this story on this point because I do know personally that while you can be forgiven for things you feel remorse, it won’t leave you. Which is where I think the bad self-esteem comes from again to this,because you don’t think you’re worth of being forgiven. Bad self-esteem isn’t Sam’s biggest problem but it’s one of problems, one of the feelings Sam has about himself which makes it him hard to see him as a good person. And like you pointed it’s the comments from the others which keep up tormeting Sam and making him live even more in the past. And the speech like from the another Money Man will help him leave his past, at least partly.
So basically I do understand what is happening here, but I’m more interested in how it will go beyond this because like I stated, I’m more interested how Sam starts to think about himself after this moment and what route it will go. This strip is a cliffhanger to Sam’s personal story, I think that’s what I’m pretty much feeling about this strip. Because while this is empowering strip, Sam’s change and route on this point forward may be even more empowering.
And I do think that one thing that in the end hurts this moment to me personally, is the fact I did know, unlike Sam, that this is different Money Man without the shared past. That, I think, does take something from this moment for me. It’s still a good moment and even more important to Sam, but perhaps because of this alternative universe thing and stuff, I’m more interested how Sam’s journey will go on and less empowered about this strip.
This is an amazing moment, and that last panel is just great! I’m so happy 😀
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