I was wrong.
on July 7, 2019 at 12:01 amChapter: The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Characters: Jennifer Billingsworth, Joyce Brown, Martians, Mike Warner, Robin DeSanto, Sal Walters, The Cheese
Location: Final battle wasteland
(note: in photoshop, the raindrop layer is titled “it’s the rain,” i’m a dork)
A lot of you know this story, but let’s go through it again anyway. I knew Mike was going to show up in my next comic strip series, Shortpacked!, and be a main character. But in the present, I needed a higher bodycount. Too many important characters were living! Someone else had to go! You gotta keep feeding bodies to the altar of Oh Yikes, This Is BUSINESS!
So I decided to kill Mike off anyway. He’d still show up alive in Shortpacked!, completely unexplained. Because, like, why not? I get what I need here, and later, I still get what I need. Who’s gonna stop me???
like, oh no, i desecrated the integrity of mike’s death
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Even in his last monents he talks smack about our mothers.
Mike got kicked out of hell for nailing Satan’s mom.
For a nickel
With Mike, it’s honestly fair play. He actively rejected having character development after Dina died, why should his own death change his status quo at all?
That’s deep, man.
Also: Mike is the most two dimensional member of the main cast, and his hair doesn’t work in three dimensions.
“Because she’s a prostiKRLCH” Iconic.
He died doing what he loved–talking shit about your mom.
Alas, though, he didn’t have time to mention nickels.
It’s not in the commentary, so I should note the word swap in the penultimate panel. Mike did not, originally, say “dumbass”.
It’s interesting the r-word is something that was retained in Penny’s earlier strip, and just kind of in general the sheer amount of “yikes” that hasn’t gotten any kind of re-edit (though mostly for story reasons.) Wonder what prompted the change here.
If I had to make a guess, it’s probably because Penny is supposed to be a unforgivable villain, so her saying unforgivable things is acceptable, whereas Mike is SUPPOSED to be one of the good guys (even if he’s still an asshole), so the change was to establish a dividing line between what’s okay for the heroes and what’s okay for a villain.
I mean sure, but equally, Mike will go on to do waaaaay worse stuff than say the r-word in Shortpacked!, which I presume is not getting a reissue anytime soon.
What’s an “r-word”?
A word beginning with “r” commonly used during the 90s and early 2000s to imply someone was stupid but then fell out of common usage in the 2010s due to it’s implied insult to those with learning disabilities. Ie, equating being slow to learn with being of low intelligence, which is a false dichotomy since someone can be slow to retain information but still process and apply that information with just as much finesse as someone who learned it quickly.
Oh no!
I tried to explain it, but I was hoisted by my own petard!
Let’s be clear, here. Prior to the ’90s, it was the clinical term to describe a certain type of learning disability. But in the ’00s, SJWs got butthurt about it being used because certain types of jerkwads overused it as a derogatory term meant to imply people were stupid.
So now, NO ONE is allowed to use it, even in its proper medical context.
Not blaming the SJW’s (not entirely); rather, I blame the dumbasses that spewed the word out like verbal diarrhea and MADE it a “bad word.”
Speaking as a kid who grew up in the ’80s it was used as an insult to call someone stupid long before the ’90s.
Yep. But the PC wave didn’t crash on us until somewhere in the ’90s. I mean, certain things were always considered rude, or could get your face punched in. But post-’90s is when words starting becoming taboo because they were misused by intolerant a-holes.
I grew up in the ’70s, and heard the “r-word” a lot; but it was more casual then. It seems like later, it started being used as a hateful term rather than just “you’re dumb.”
Anyway, “learning disabled” doesn’t have quite the same “zing” to it, yet I hear people using that now, (among other things) to call other people stupid. People can turn anything into a slur.
It’s always possible that Mike’s usage in the web upload was a last-minute change that wasn’t reflected in the print-sized file.
I love when Mike is in mortal danger. His reactions are just so perfectly Mike.
This is one of my all-time favorite Mike strips.
Wait so you killed them all for the sake of raising the suspense, eh weird here I thought this and helping to cauterize Walkys wound was a low key attempt at a redemption for Dina’s downward death spiral. I mean yeah he’s an Unapologetic asshole but he’s still one of the good guys so he needed a noble death.
On that note I think we can say he died doing what he loved, being an asshole.
I love that Mike continues his insults about moms even as he’s being killed.
He died doing what he loved. Being an ass
I’m trying to decide whether or not desecrating the integrity of Mike’s death is worse than desecrating the integrity of Ronald Reagan’s death.
Joyce is totes pulling an Orihime rn
like, GETCHER SANTENKESSHUN UP IN THAT BIZNATCH
Did Mike’s return stay unexplained in Shortpacked?
No, but it took most of the comic’s run before it was explained.
The funny thing is- admittedly completely with the advantage of hindsight of having already read Shortpacked- this strip comes off as a funny comic relief breather in the weight of all the other deathiness going on. Mike’s death is hilarious compared to the rest, instead of escalating the oh-yikes.
Joyce’s mantra at the end of this strip was one of the most memorable parts of IW!’s finale for me.
Coming from 2020, I sense a pattern of Mike’s heroic sacrifices needing to be coupled with Your Mom insults
It’s the only way he’d ever go.