Similar-but-different universe
on November 18, 2021 at 1:01 amI toyed with the idea of Leslie having to hop through a few different universes before she got to the one she was actually after, because, you know, what’s the likelihood of her striking gold first-thing? But, like, nah, that’s tedious, just put her where she needs to be first, this story’s gonna be long enough already.
Now here’s where things get a little art-nerdy. Leslie and Ultra Car have ported into an earlier Shortpacked! store, as Leslie quickly surmises, and the thing is it’s colored like the strip was at the time. Y’know, the watercolor-y effect. And we’re about to learn that the coloring style of the strip may be… diegetic? Why? Because it’s fun, why not, and also other reasons. I didn’t have twins at the time, so I had time to overthink these sorts of things. I literally had a full 24 hours a day to myself to just think on these things. I can’t even imagine it anymore.
Ethan is telling a joke that may not make sense anymore? Scott Snyder was in his second New 52 Batman arc at the time, and it was the second arc in a row where Batman’s like NO OBVIOUSLY THIS THING THIS STORY’S ABOUT CAN’T BE TRUE and both times whoops it was true. I don’t think that pattern recurred again after this. So. Oh well! Timely joke defeated by more data.
ALSO holy shit that gag namedropping both Hitler and Donald Trump. It was SUPPOSED to be one of those “serious answer but then a joke” things but godfuckin’damn.
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haha oops
like how the creator of Shardlight was all “Oops I predected the AHCA and 2020 pandemic”
*predicted
I love when spellcheck/autocorrect totally skips out on working
I like https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2443 for creepy predictions. 2013, five-year plan, it all adds up.
This comic was released in…December 2012? Whooooooof.
Merely proof Donald Trump has always been hot garbage.
Oh my god I only ever read your comics in the past year or so, it genuinely didn’t even occur to me that that joke was written in a pre-President Trump world
Yeah uh. Rip to that joke.
I mean, it went from a joke to just being an entirely valid comparison.
If you make a joke about someone doing a thing and then they stop doing that thing, just assume they stopped doing it to spite you and your joke.
Whether it makes sense for them to have even seen your joke is irrelevant.
I mean, a big part of why he even ran for president was to spite Obama for a joke made at his expense during a press dinner in the White House, so it fits
I was talking about the Scott Snyder joke, but that also works.
I’ll admit that I was pretty ignorant of politics in 2012, being a dumbass teenager and all, but I feel like Leslie’s line was still pretty damn prescient.
…or maybe it’s actually that I was ignorant of reality TV
Pretty sure in 2012 Trump wasn’t even involved with politics other than just being a jerk to certain politicians.
He’d been threatening to run for at least a decade (why Simpsons was able to predict him winning)
He did run for president in 2000 for a few months as a candidate for the Reform Party, but dropped out due to infighting within that party.
Biff Tannen was explicitly modeled after Trump in like ’89, the dude was notorious as the embodiment of a lot of the worst things about America for decades.
I mean, if you lived in New York you already knew Donald Trump was just a ghastly human being who used his inherited control of New York real estate to do some real ghastly (and often racially motivated) shit. He was always kind of a monster, being President just expanded his scope.
And since New York is a major producer of mass media, he was decently well known outside of it for being just an absolutely scumfuck.
Cassandra effect.
“*sneak sneak sneak*” is a great sound effect
Without it, one must assume Leslie is trying to blend in by holding a yoga pose.
The tag misspells Hitler’s first name.
…or the spelling is slightly different in this similar-but-different alt-universe.
Oh nice, I did not catch (or maybe I didn’t remember) the meaning behind the coloring.
Same. Shortpacked! was on my daily webcomic read list when this came out, and I assumed the different shading was just visual shorthand for “this is a different universe”.
“But, like, nah, that’s tedious, just put her where she needs to be first” Let’s simply assume she figured the right universe during the Sugar Rush.
I never understood the meaning of Ethan’s Batman joke until now, as I’ve never read the Batman comics you were referencing when you made this strip.
Leslie correctly comes out as pro-Nazi punching, settling the debate years in advance.
Unfortunately, she did so in an alternate universe, dooming us here on Earth 1 to endure endless hand wringing about whether courtesy and kindness is owed to friggin’ Nazis.
I suppose the biggest upside to the Soggies invading was that the bastard never got to be president in the Walkyverse.
The soggies basically _are_ his base, though… crusading to preserve bland whiteness
I remember being somewhat unsettled by the coloring change at the time. It seemed like it was more than just a joke even then, like something was wrong here.