Astounding Annotations - Week 11

So here we go again with what I'm calling "Astounding Annotations." Basically, this is an opportunity to explain some of the more obscure references I threw in (and there were a bunch of them), and to give some idea as to why I did this in the first place. This is the comics equivalent of director's commentary, so if you've just stumbled upon our little site you might want to check out the story itself first (I recommend starting here). And yes, I'm aware this is all pretty damn self-indulgent, so I'll try not to go on and on. And away we go...

Day 31



Panel 1: Hey, sorry I sort of let these slide for a few days. I'm back now and I'll spend the next few days running down the rest of these, including a separate post for each day of Week 14, what with it being extra length and all. Anyway, onto Week 11...to be honest, this is a week I kind of want to let speak for itself. This was very much Joe's week to flex his artistic muscles and I tried to let my writing take a bit of a backseat, although there are some plot points in here as well, I guess. You know, like the whole "threat to the multiverse is real" thing. In any event, this panel is a reference to The Far Side. But I'm going to guess you knew that.

Panel 2: And this is Monty (I had to ask Joe about this one, if I'm being honest). The thing about oxygen is another reference to Watchmen, specifically when Dr. Manhattan forgets Laurie needs air to breathe when she's on Mars.

Panel 3: I'll say it right now: I sort of like Foxtrot. I don't think it's a great comic strip - there's really only one comic strip I'd consider "great" - but it always seems pretty good-natured and diverting whenever I glance at it. Make of that what you will. Incidentally, if I can talk about this week in general for just a second, I'll say that this was one of the earliest ideas I had for Astounding, and I wanted to do this for a few reasons. One, I wanted to make it clear that every conceivable universe does, in fact, exist, even ones where people look radically different and the absurd physics of comic strips rule. Two, like I said at the beginning, I thought it would be a cool thing to do artistically and something Joe could have some fun with after all the absurd exposition-y lettering I made him do each week.

Panel 4: I really thought about just having the Corpsman say "Good grief" and be done with it, but that just seemed like one homage too far. So this is pretty much the joke equivalent of having your cake and eating it too, as I both essentially do make the reference but also acknowledge the silliness of it. Oh, and reason number three we did this week was that I really wanted to see Mr. Astounding hold his cape like Linus's blanket. That just seemed like too good a visual not to do.

Day 32



Panel 1: The Jaspers Warp is from Alan Moore's run on Captain Britain, and it refers to a massive shift in the nature of reality, which is pretty much exactly what's going on here. Although the shift in Captain Britain is even trippier, truth be told. I think the Mentor as Dilbert's boss is probably my second favorite image after Mr. Astounding as Linus.

Panel 2: I. Love. Calvin. And. Hobbes. Really all I have to say, although I will point out it was another Calvin & Hobbes parody from a Superman comic that helped give me the idea to do this. I'm not exactly sure where it is on the web, so I'll upload the version I saved from a year or so ago. Click on it for the bigger version.



Maybe my favorite comics page ever. Lois Lane as Calvin's mom works a little too well. Although Superman as Calvin's dad would have been really interesting.

Panel 3: Ah, Doonesbury. Joe rather cleverly drew the Mentor as the hallucinatory character Mr. Butts, just to really emphasize the fact that the Mentor doubts the reality of his own existence.

Panel 4: This is Barney Google and Snuffy Smith. I did not know that. Oh, and "I'm so, so sorry" is a frequent refrain of the Doctor's during the second series of the revived Doctor Who. I really do tick all the geeky boxes, don't I?

Day 33



Panel 1: And here we burn through a bunch of remaining characters. According to Joe, this is the setup: "the Mentor is Mallard Fillmore, the Corpsman is Beetle Bailey, Mr. Astounding is Dagwood Bumstead from Blondie, and the setting is from B.C."

Panel 2: Ah, and here's where the plot gets dragged back in. I think it's a tribute to Joe's designs that, even after all that awesomeness, I was still glad to see the real versions of the characters back.

Panel 3: I'll admit, what Mr. Astounding does here is arguably overkill, what with destroying an entire universe and all. But it is a lifeless universe and it is a way of proving something definitively. Oh, and it provided narrative justification for the indulgence of doing all these comic strip parodies. It's really your call whether that's sufficient justification, but that's my case for the defense.

Panel 4: Hey...where are they flying off to? I mean, it's a void. I dunno. I just thought it looked cool. And the terrible truth of Astounding is revealed. In the end, we were just trying to look cool. I think this week succeeded better than most.

Astounding Annotations - Week 10

So here we go again with what I'm calling "Astounding Annotations." Basically, this is an opportunity to explain some of the more obscure references I threw in (and there were a bunch of them), and to give some idea as to why I did this in the first place. This is the comics equivalent of director's commentary, so if you've just stumbled upon our little site you might want to check out the story itself first (I recommend starting here). And yes, I'm aware this is all pretty damn self-indulgent, so I'll try not to go on and on. And away we go...

Day 28



Panel 1: I think that's one of the better recaps. If nothing else, it broke up the format a little bit. I was so glad to stop having to write those. Onto the actual first panel, this is another example of me seeing something cool and then incorporating it into Astounding in real time. In this case, it was the Comedian's armory from the Watchmen movie (which I thought was pretty good, for what it's worth).

Panel 2: Uh. So much text here. At least Nora keyed in on the important word. For the record, the Corpsman isn't in love with any version of Nora. He's not even particularly attracted to her, but that's mostly because he's so dedicated to the mission. Like I said, he's truly Batman (and not post-Hush willing to let romance into his life in the form of Catwoman Batman either. That was one hell of a tortured sentence, wasn't it?)

Panel 3: This is pretty much all you need to know about the Corpsman. His search for identity is his biggest insecurity, what with being a cosmic anomaly and all, but he's making himself far, far too busy to really deal with it. Oh, and I'll admit I wasn't crazy about Joe putting somebody in the room up above. The dialogue in Week 8 had meant to suggest Nora was the only person in the entire dorm, but since it never said that explicitly, well...no continuity error! Woo!

Panel 4: I'd be interested to know who people think is the hero at this point. I'd generally say I rooted for the Corpsman the whole way through, but I admit I made him do some pretty vengeful, hardcore stuff, and this is a pretty brutal line.

Day 29



Panel 1: This is maybe the craziest, most self-involved continuity possible, but for what it's worth I had this planned out the whole time (well...at least going to back to when I wrote week 5). But man, Joe sure does love roughing up our hero, doesn't he? I mean, he did get struck by lightning and plummet three stories, but still...between this and the burnt hand in week 6, you start to wonder what Joe thinks of the poor guy.

Panel 2: Since the dialogue pretty much speaks for itself, I'll just briefly discuss the Corpsman's look, as I've kept promising to. Basically, I'd been reading Paul Cornell's awesome (and, tragically, soon to end) run on Captain Britain and MI13, which features Captain Midlands, a gruff British superhero who has fought the good fight since World War II. I'm not exactly sure why I wanted a militaristic look. I suppose I thought that, in a world without superheroes, the Corpsman's outfit is fairly non-ridiculous. I threw in the gun as a nod to the new version of Captain America and we went for the full brim around the helmet - something I had erroneously imagined Captain Midlands having - mostly because it looks awesome. Oh, and the boots are pure old school Captain America. For what it's worth, the boots were made using the fabric of Mr. Astounding's cape from the outfit he left behind in week 6. Actually, I believe the entire outfit other than the helmet and the sewed-on symbol is made out of the Astounding costume.

Panel 3: This is where the Corpsman pulls the stupid fictional character cliched mistake of talking too much and giving away the solution to Mr. Astounding. I knew it was sort of lame for him to point out the full scope of his powers like that, since what happens next is really the only reasonable thing to expect. I justified it on the grounds that the Corpsman knew it was only a matter of time before Mr. Astounding worked it out anyway and decided he might as well risk it now than wait for his next reappearance. I don't know if you buy that or not, but that's my own theory.

Panel 4: Joe really nailed the transition here. By the by, I know this week makes it pretty ambiguous whether or not either character was planning on actually killing the other. I'd say, on balance, that neither character would cross that line, but both have been pushed to the edge and the thought has crossed their minds. If either were actually a killer - and I don't think they are - they might have gone through with it. Maybe. Honestly, even I'm not sure.

Day 30



Panel 1: "I'm just an aberration created to patch a hole in cosmic continuity." Ah, don't you just love self-referential humor? The "cosmic" part makes it meta without being too meta.

Panel 2: I think this panel is where the relationship melodrama part of Astounding gets it ass kicked by the superhero action movie part of Astounding. Very much as it should be.

Panel 3: Wow, this day is so meta that it almost hurts. Generally speaking, I wanted to avoid the whole "This is just like those comic books I read" angle, not because that doesn't interest me as because then you run the risk of the characters spending more time discussing the genre than actually being involved in a story within said genre. (I think movies in the late nineties had a tendency to fall into this trap. Or maybe it was the early 00's. I get those two mixed up. Also, seriously, what the hell are we calling this decade?) Anyway, I thought here was the perfect place to step back and have the Corpsman admit how ludicrous his life is, particularly by the standards of his otherwise normal universe.

Panel 4: OK, OK, "Fun With Copyright Infringement" probably beats "Stop Hitting Yourself", if I'm being honest. Oh, and I know what we see in week 11 is most definitely not what the Corpsman was talking about here, but what the hey. Next week is meant to be fun. And boy, is it ever. But we'll get to that tomorrow.

Week 11

Day 31



Day 32



Day 33