God bless 79-cent burritos
on November 30, 2013 at 12:01 amWell here’s a buncha important firsts. It’s the real first appearance of Walky! And Professor Doc! And of the extravagantly-funded SEMME Complex!
I mean, dude, check out that high tech computer equipment Doc’s using. He also sometimes prints out graphs to tape to the walls.
I also wonder where exactly he got that Taco Bell from. The SEMME Complex is purposefully buried somewhere in the mountains to the west of Denver. Presuming he bought it in civilization, which is miles away, that shit gets inedible within about five minutes, as soon as the heat leaves the food and you end up with a horrid mush. I mean, I love Taco Bell, but it’s kind of immediately perishable.
…oh right, i think i established there’s a taco bell express inside the semme complex itself in that computer game i never finished…
WELL, PROBLEM SOLVED I GUESS
anyway
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Wait, computer game?
You read right. Willis actually made a few games about Walky shooting aliens back in the Clinton years. They may still be out there somewhere.
Yeah, I found ’em not long ago. Don’t remember where. They’re in that annoying Win9x zone where they’re Windows software and won’t run in dosbox, but are too old to run on reasonably modern Windows machines, though, so I haven’t been able to actually play them.
If they don’t run in Windows compatibility mode, or you don’t have a version that has it (Pro and higher since Win7 IIRC) you may wanna try running ’em in Linux using Wine. The most a Ubuntu Live CD costs is a disk to burn it on and some time to download and burn, and you can get Wine from the repositories in a few minutes. Wine on Windows is still in a fairly not ready for primetime state, though it is slowly getting to the point where one could compile it with a fairly minimal amount of added dependencies and some custom coding to make it actually work right on Windows, and will eventually get there.
I’m on Slackware, actually. I just can’t be arsed to set up Wine.
I have an old laptop with XP on it, which I’ve never bothered to cleanse because I have an identical one and a better one with Slack installed anyway, that I use on the rare occasions I need Windows-only software. (HeavyMetal Pro, mostly, because my BattleTech GM doesn’t trust my Linux-native mech designer.)
I was able to play one of them… the 4th one, in the “Walkerton – Semiauto” folder. Pretty buggy in some places, and I think it froze up a few times, but I was able to get through the whole thing if I remember correctly. This is on 64-bit Windows 7.
I don’t remember where I got it either, but I could easily put it up (if Willis is ok with that of course).
But yeah, there was… actually, I think it was a cafeteria of some sort, not a Taco Bell. Huh. Maybe the Taco Bell was in a different game. Or maybe the cafeteria just has 79-cent burritos.
Sucks the cost of burritos rose since this comic was made.
…Burritos, burritoes, what the Hell is the plural for burrito?
Es, if it ends in a vowel, or x, it it es.
No, it’s a Spanish word, so we pluralize by Spanish rules. Burritos.
Wait, Taco Bell is Spanish?
Allegedly.
No. They serve very bad impersonations of Mexican food, hence Spanish names on things, but they are one of the least cultural ethnic food joints to ever exist.
I find the soft shell tacos keep decently if you get them without lettuce.
Who says SEMME doesn’t somehow have super-advanced cryogenic something-or-other taco-fresheners?
I bet if someone at SEMME eats your Taco Bell, they can just use one of their machines to bring it back to “life.”
And then bring back Ronald Reagan.
Know what the world needs? A machine that just makes Taco Bell.
First appearance of Professor Doc? I was under the impression that Sly Sirs was part of the Walkyverse.
Pretty sure he’s said something along the lines of “the ending couldn’t be integrated into canon, so it uses the same characters but isn’t really in it unless otherwise noted”.
Sly Sirs is not canon. It was largely fourth-wall-breaking anyway, and what little wasn’t conflicts heavily.
Is the Taco Bell run by abductees, too? Or is it just a regular Taco Bell Express run in a top-secret hidden facility deep in the middle of Shittons of Mountains, USA?
It’s been awhile since I’ve read Walkyverse and Roomies. So, if this is Walkies first appearance why is he so concerned/sad about Joyce?
Because he has a soul? I mean, they’re gonna let everyone she ever loved think she’s dead, not to mention she’s in a coma. Most people would feel kind of bad.
Also, Walky and Joyce were abductees, which means that the Aliens were kidnapping them, and sometimes they were together–although neither one remembers this because of the constant memory wipes…which are an imperfect process, so some of that lost memory bleeds back in. So Walky doesn’t remember Joyce, but there are the reflections of echoes of memory bouncing around in his subconscious.
Walky and Joyce have a history. A very unpleasant traumatic history. They got mindwiped about it but traces of memories remain making them react to things in ways they shouldn’t.
And, yes, this is why she had a dog named “Walkies.” Later, after another mind-wipe, she names a dog “Daniel.”
If you get the tacos in the fridge immediately, you can reheat them. But only do it with softshells, hardshells are useless as soon as they are soggy.
a taco that is uniform temperature is a terrible taco
cold sour cream juxtaposed against the warm filling is absolutely crucial to a positive taco-eating experience.
For some reason I always thought the SEMME complex was in downtown Denver.
So how soon until we go from “Roomies” to “It’s Walky!”?
And when we do, will we go from bringbackroomies.com to bringbackitswalky.com?
Seven months or so.
My god. I always assumed that “79c burritos” were the 79c frozen burritos you find at 7-11 and their ilk. I largely existed on these during my college years.
Keep ’em frozen and they last for decades
Back in the long, long ago we had access to Taco Bell’s 59,79,99 Menu (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HOEedzWDdI for a 20 year old example) which, as the name suggests, had selections for 59¢, 79¢, and 99¢. In the ’90s I personally practically lived off that stuff because my budget as a teen was so low until I started working.
and that kids is how i met your mother
Why is it that no one ever mentions this fake death when the question of “where did Joyce go”, is brought up?
I may be mistaken, but I remember Walky secretly modifying the cover story to something about Joyce becoming a missionary. Wack’d, we need you!
Yeah, the story (which shows up in a few days here) that the Roomies! folks and Joyce’s family get is that she became a missionary to Bulmeria. I seem to recall it being implied that Walky came up with it, but I don’t remember the details and can’t find it on a quick look back at the old site.
It’s definitely mentioned she was supposedly doing missionary work later on.
I always saw Semme as having an “aboveground” building, for the team members to room, and some various businesses, and an “underground” base in the mountains for the more… Fun …. Computer game? I have never heard of this.
dude, DUDE. it is so awesome to watch your art grow. thank you for doing this!
Can someone explain why a secret organization has such a giant, obnoxiously yellow sign on the building?
I mean, even if it is in the middle of nowhere anyone can see it
No one knows what “SEMME” stands for anyway.
As I wrote this I remembered some of my dad’s stories about delivering pizza to nondescript office buildings with massive CIA logos in the lobby, so maybe it’s not so wierd
So from the point of view of the students back in Indiana, Ruth and Joyce died on the same night?
Well, actually… if I remember right, you’ll see what Walky does next strip.
So is that building next to the SEMME building also part of SEMME?
No, actually. There’s another super-secret organization right next door. The land’s cheap up in the mountains, y’know.
It’s Walky!
(Someone had to say it.)
Hahahahahahahahahahaha
Ha ha.
Ha.
This comment was written before a live studio audience.
So she’s just going to disappear, just like that, and be part of an entirely different story divorced from the Roomies world?
Oh, it’s Walky again. Hello, Walkerton.
And now that she’s away from Danny she can start on the long road to being not a psycho!
There being a Taco Bell in the facility creates more questions than it answers. Such as how SEMME’s facilities remain secret when there are several public lists of all Taco Bell locations: Is the federal government paying off Yum! Brands to not report those locations? What about the employees?
Originally posted:
May 9, 1999