Dave Davenport Has Come Unstuck in Time: September 22-27, 2003
February 27, 2010 ~ 25 Comments
This one’s kind of dumb. It’s a really, really early script.
I really dragged out the suspense on Future!Helen’s situation. I do like the character designs on the future versions of the characters (yes, Helen included). Of course, these are only the designs for this messed-up dystopian future. They’d probably look different in a happier future.
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I wrote this strip early on and later worried about whether Dave would really think he and Helen would be likely to marry. In the end, I kept it because I thought it was funny.
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Those are some awesome nos.
This is another really early script. I like that Future!Mell simply will not stop lying to Dave and messing with his head. I imagine the temptation to lie to time-travelers would be intense. Maybe it’s just me.
Ha! That looks kind of like my Macintosh, which is now seven years old. Computer technology evolves too quickly for science fiction.
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Drawing architecture is HARD.
Chris, Mell’s PR guy, is named after The Deadliest PR Guy in the World, protagonist of a very early comic by my good friend and fellow Viz editor Jason Thompson (with script by Patrick Macias, who used to work for Viz and now runs Otaku USA magazine). I was given a copy when I first started at Viz, and it was my introduction to the magical world of Jason Thompson.
So here it is: another candidate for Most Ridiculously Obscure Reference in Narbonic. Jason, you are the wind beneath my wings.
“Central Central” is a much less obscure reference to A Wrinkle in Time, and a nod to Future!Helen’s situation.
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Monday:
She’s literally been infused with the milk of human kindness.
Is it my imagination or is Mell making the most of the opportunity to yell in Dr. Davenport’s saggy face? Maybe I’m overthinking this.
(TUNE: “Letters, We Get Letters”, Perry Como)
Lattes, she drinks lattes!
She drinks lots and lots of lattes!
Miss Kelly,
How’d you turn Type A?
I told you, my friend,
That coffee’d get us in the end!
I always associate that song with the CBS Mail Bag on Letterman…
Yeah, Dave is probably fatter in the happier future. 🙂
The Auld Grump
Gads. Mell is an enormous jerk.
(I really, really like it.)
So Mell finally learned it… Uhoh.
Tuesday:
Mell Kelly, intern no more.
“Well, this future is just peachy” is the second most memorably delivered line from this story arc. I’d tell you what the most memorable one was, but I can’t quite recall it.
Yeah, just peachy. It’s driving poor Dave bananas! It just makes him plum crazy that Mell doesn’t seem to carrot all! It’s enough to make a man go mad! It’s more than he can pear!
(Orange you glad I didn’t write a song like this?)
Of course, the happier future is still a messed-up dystopian future. Just for everyone else.
“Dave” and “happier future”: two concepts that do not go together.
(TUNE: “MacArthur Park”, Jimmy Webb)
So, what’s the secret? Please, for goodness sake!
Oh, good Lord, did I and Helen wed?
Brother, wouldn’t that just take the cake!
You might think that Helen’s strange now,
‘Cause she’s gone through quite a change now,
And you might say that she’s gone out of her head!
Oh yeah!
Wednesday:
Those lines below Mell’s eyes tell you that she means the harrowing things she says.
Hooooo….
Obviously Dave simply jumped to the most horrible thing he could think of. Whether or not he actually thought it likely to happen is not germaine.
No, I have to agree–my first instinct would be to lie and screw with ’em.
I like how there’s one NO per Narbon. Even when paralyzed with horror, Dave’s good with numbers.
I forgot to post a comment yesterday on Mell’s statement that “you can’t fight DNA.” I like that Helen’s attempts to fight DNA are the root cause of this dystopia.
Thursday:
I like the fact that with this strip we get to see Dave completely rattled without actually disclosing any new information. And, of course, Mell utterly demolishing Dave’s composure with just one sentence.
I’m not really convinced that actual events are worse than six Dr. Narbons.
In the end, there can be only one….
Friday:
Isn’t it just beautiful?
(Though, I’m not sure if Dave should be quite so impressed given that he and Lady Dave had to invent a quantum data bus just last year. But then, it’s not like his long years under the ground haven’t taken a toll on his sense of perspective.)
(TUNE: “Beat It”, Michael Jackson)
Well, Mell is taking me to Helen’s main lair …
Oh my, there’s somethin’ shiny, caught my eye in there!
A holographic screen that’s displayed in mid-air
With quibits … with quibits!
Oh my enthusiasm isn’t reserved!
They’re indeterminate until they get observed!
Well, Intel and Freescale got totally served
By quibits!
It’s a quantum machine, yeah!
Quibits! Quibits!
Quantum now makes the new bits!
Technical beauty! Superposed state!
It’s all compute-y! Isn’t it great?
Yeah, quibits! Quibits!
Microsoft ain’t worth two bits!
Quibits, I want ’em! Quibits are in!
They’re full of quantum! They’re full of win!
They’re quibits!
Quibits, quibits, quibits!
Saturday:
This is the worst takeoff of “The Wizard of Oz” I’ve ever seen… so much so that I can barely figure it out.
(TUNE: “This Magic Moment”, The Drifters)
Some Star Trek moment!
The u-su-al snafu!
They screwed the agenda
Like they always do!
It’s nothing major,
But now we gotta go
To Central Central
To see the CEO …
Shoot the nosey journo,
(Shoot the nosey journo)
Stab him if you want to, too!
(Stab him if you want to, too)
Without a good PR man,
I don’t know what I’d do!
These Star Trek moments,
They wear my patience thin!
Now Dave must see Helen,
But sure as hell, man, I’m not going in!
They’re sorta off to see the wizard.