D, D’: March 13-18, 2006
August 18, 2012 ~ 24 Comments
Dave having taken five years to get through Vassar goes back to my pre-Narbonic college strip, The Ratio. It comes up a couple of times in Narbonic. I don’t appreciate Artie sassing my alma mater, though.
This is probably the most overt slash joke in Narbonic. Which is funny, because that’s like 60% of Skin Horse.
There were blogs in 2000, barely, but I didn’t think 2000s-era Dave would be very interested in that part of the Internet. He’s not much of a social-media guy.
It’s too bad Dave doesn’t have visible eyes most of the time, because you have to picture him giving Artie serious eyeroll here.
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In the first panel there’s a hand holding up an eyeball inside a porthole. That’s pretty good. Also, Mell’s carting around boxes of body parts for some reason.
It really bothers Artie when someone doesn’t like him. He’s used to being cute and fuzzy and lovable, and now he’s just some useless prettyboy.
“Foob” is another fictional slang word from For Better or for Worse. This strip is more heavily influenced by For Better or for Worse than most people realize.
I don’t know what the pattern on the wall behind Mell indicates, but it sure does make the strip look snazzy.
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This version of Dave finds Helen much too scary to be attractive. The question is whether this makes him more or less sane than Original Flavor Dave.
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You want to space out your “Dave never smoked” jokes. Let them unveil themselves at leisure, like beautiful flowers. Only then will their true beauty reveal itself.
Monday:
To be fair, Dave and the gerbils were also kind of antagonistic when they first met.
Of course, if the two women fought, it would be over in about 0.35 seconds. And neither puddle of charred protoplasm would look particularly appealing.
I’ve had just about enough of your Vassar-bashing, young man.
Hateful Artie is hateful.
Normal Dave is such a prick, but I love how he turns out to be vital. Good stuff.
Yeah, but it’s a dry hate…
I would feel sorry for Artie, but there’s this future Skin Horse arc where Artie has learned to turn this problem into a superpower, so I’m not really feeling too bad.
Mel’s carrying boxes of *upside down* body parts. 🙂
One might suspect Artie also feels particularly troubled being rejected by someone he’s literally known his entire life — yes, yes, Clone!Dave isn’t Dave, but still, that’s gotta suck, if only on a subconscious level.
If “foob” is a portmanteau of “fool” and “boob”, how would you combine “nerd” and “geek”? Would new Dave be a gerd or a neek? You could call him “you neek” to his face, and he probably wouldn’t get it. (Hee heeee unique me so funny)
… so does that mean you’re planning to drown Sweetheart at some point?(Seriously, though, while I do recognize the validity of the criticism against it, I tend to think that For Better or Worse is underrated by most in a lot of ways. Then again, I’m amazed by anyone that manages to do something more with a syndicate strip than lasagna gags and… whatever people read Ziggy for.)
Hmm, perhaps the ovals are large rivets or something like that? It would make more sense for them to be circles, but far be it from me to question the mad genius mind.
A circle viewed at an angle becomes an ellipse. The artist is stealthily practicing Perspective!
Definitely more sane. But less smart.
(TUNE: “Crazy Train”, Ozzy Ozbourne)
Booting up! [Windows power-up music]
[Dial-up modem connection noise]
New Dave … is really uncool!
Artie reminds him … of bullies in school!
Helen … he wouldn’t touch!
He may be desperate, but not quite that much!
He’s a carbon copy,
Kinda weak and lame!
He’s gonna stay away from the crazy dame!
This is Dave as of his entry to the lab… he hasn’t had his own madness cultivated and stoked, like Helen did to the original.
@mental_mouse: This is Dave as of his entry to the lab, yes, but this Dave [SPOILER] doesn’t have any latent madness to stoke. In about two and a half weeks Artie will tell Mell that this Dave has taken the madness cure.[/SPOILER]
Heh. All webcomics should come with author’s notes.
You know what would be cool? Bible with author’s notes.
It was John Keats who said a “Dave never smoked” joke is a joy forever.
Sadly, he never played Call of Cthulhu, so he was unable to appreciate the “sanity points” joke.
Artie could be responding to Dave’s early comments after the time-travel episode… or the change in reality could be a little leaky.
Bible with author’s notes:
“I told Moses that he got all this wrong, but he thought that the story was dragging, and wanted to speed up the plot. He said that ten billion years of hydrogen atoms banging together was boring. BORING? Do you know how many aeons I spent tweaking the fundamental forces just to make fusion and molecular bonds possible? Some people just don’t appreciate craftsmanship.
“You call it the Bible. I call it ‘Too Many Cooks’.”
@ Ed Gedeon and S. Garrity:
Once there was a God, not a very good God, at least when it came to Creation, but he enjoyed making worlds. It brought him joy.
But, because of the lackadaisical fashion of his worlds the Reality Creation Board sent him a notice that they were taking away his license to create worlds, effective seven days from reciept of letter.
So, this God, he decided to create one last world in the time that he had left.
And, lo, he created it!
Mountains, valleys, rivers, oceans, plains, hills, and sky! He looked upon it and found it good enough for a rush job.
And then he Peopled it with a race of beings that He called Man.
Because misery loves company….
Hmm. Can’t find The Ratio on Google. Perhaps… for the best.