I don’t think I like this universe very much
on November 20, 2021 at 1:01 amOKAY okay, here’s where we have need for more Shortpacked! context. So, like, at the end of Shortpacked!’s first year, I had this story about Robin finding a Drama Tag in the stockroom, like one of those plastic slips you yank out of an electronic toy to get it to start running off the battery? Anyway, once she pulled it, the strip started having dramatic things happening (thus “drama tag”), like Amber’s dad Blaine showing up to be a cockmonster. That’s right, that’s where Dumbing of Age’s Blaine O’Malley comes from. That storyline.
And hosting/guarding/providing-exposition to this Drama Tag was Head Alien II. I never explained it. He was just there.
But I’m about to explain it.
Anyway, this is one of those Winter Break Cliffhangers, where I put this kind of strip up on a Friday before I give myself time off for Christmas and New Years, and then come back and finish the story two weeks later. But hey! You get the follow-up tomorrow! Not bad!
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Part of me thinks you may as well have integrated all of Shortpacked! here in the first place but I get that’s daunting
Or at least all of the story advancing comics.
Shortpacked! had a lot of one-off joke filler. Good stuff, but of its time.
As someone who read Shortpacked! before any of the other comics in the original continuity (look, Roomies! was rough, okay?), for the longest time I got the impression from this storyline that Leslie had met one of the Head Aliens in the flesh– his own flesh, that is, not Dorothy’s– because she seems to recognize his voice in Panel 2 and clearly recognizes his physical form in Panel 4.
In hindsight, I’m guessing she recognized him from news coverage of the war?
She was there at Joyce and Walky’s wedding, right?
Yeah, but he looked like Dorothy at the time. Maybe she recognized the orange-yellow octagonal dialogue bubbles.
…honestly, there’s every chance a contact high would let her see the bubbles.
There is actually a hole in my explanation which is that The Walkybrown Wedding was in black and white.
I guess the octagons aren’t nothing.
I mean, probably it did? She can only see the drama tag right now because she’s got a lingering borrowed sugar high from Robin.
Oh right. I totally forgot about that and didn’t catch what Rassilon was saying.
I’ve gotta imagine she also looked up information about the Alien War like Dorothy did about the time she got seriously involved with Robin. His body IS on display at the Smithsonian, after all.
… Which is still morbid as hell and also, which one, American History or Air and Space.
As someone who was SO invested in the drama of shortpacked at the time, this was absolutely a jawdropping moment if there ever was one.
Yep. I only vaguely remembered who HA II was because I’d read J&W! in a still-recovering-from-critically-low-Vitamin-D-and-thyroiditis haze, but the Drama Tag had been a big deal for years and I remembered Shortpacked lore dramatically more.
Now, things get explained. Also, HAII is one hell of a fucking Christmas cliffhanger, as all Heads Alien are, and so he never fails to bring the stakes.
Also, while that last-panel Amber doesn’t look QUITE as dead inside as the one last strip, it’s still pretty dang bad. Glad our Ambers never reached the point of marrying someone who makes fake geek girl jokes.
Tonight the role of the Drama Tag will be played by Owen Wilson.
Wow.
Despite my usual issues with time travel in drama, the amount of meta-drama in this arc makes it one of my all time favorites.
Well, it’s cool this time, since this isn’t time travel. Problem solved!
“Status quo is God.” Was this the TV Tropes trope namer, or was HA’s line taken from there?
I agree with Leslie in the first panel, this alternate universe kinda sucks. Ethan needs to get better material for his Batman jokes at least.
That’s where George Lucas went wrong: Explaining something that no one wanted or needed explained.
Is this David Willis’ Midichlorian moment? Tune in in two weeks and find out!
Wow, I’d completely forgotten that HAII showed up when Robin first pulled the tag, though I did remember Galasso burning it later. Willis planted this so early!
But, do we ever find out why only Robin and Rachel can pull tags? Is it because they’re abductees? If so, then why can’t HAII do it himself, or alter someone to?
Remember, Mike was at the store at the time too.
I suspect, given the commentary today, that explaining the Drama Tag wasn’t necessarily something Willis originally planned. A lot of Shortpacked developed over time – Leslie was never meant to be a significant character, much less the arguable protagonist in the last few years of the strip – and I suspect the decision to explain the Drama Tag may have come with the idea to make something better out of Rachel’s fridging in the wedding storyline. We’ll see, of course – I wouldn’t be shocked if Galasso’s backstory was always in the plans – but I’m guessing Robin could see the drama tag and no one else because she was a/the main character of early Shortpacked, and anyone else being able to do so here was because this storyline isn’t about Robin.
It might just be narrative convenience for why they can’t just pull it now. Sometimes you have to do that as an author, and explaining why is less believable than leaving it vague. Still, I’d be interested if he does have a reason in a future strip.