I’m so NERVOUS!
on January 7, 2018 at 12:01 amNot actually meeting your first interdimensional traveler, Head Alien, though I don’t recall if that’s information you currently have or not. But we’ll find out about that later.
Look, it’s a new spider spaceship thing! I was about to design it myself since it showed up first in one of my strips, when T was all, um, hey, yo, Jason Waltrip is kind of, like, y’know, a mecha artist? Why don’t we let him take a crack at it? And I was like, oh, right, duh, there I am, hogging all the ship designs, despite not being… great at them.
But hey, check it out!
what do i call it
Let’s go see what T has to say about today’s strip.
Head Alien, like everyone else in this story at this point, is working about as well as he can from very limited knowledge. He assumes that these travelers, like others who appear later in IW, have tech that allows them to jump dimensions on purpose. He’s wrong, but it could be worse for him: these seven interdimensional travelers could have Cheese-level powers or technology that makes his ship look like tiddlywinks. The Scanner would probably pick up on the former, but probably is not definitely. Ultimately, the risk of not seizing this opportunity, especially when SEMME is likely already on its way to investigate, outweighs the risk of going for it.
“I don’t think that technique suits your personality.” is a candidate for the most understated understatement in the history of the Walkyverse.
Which is ironic since the person in question is not given to understatement…
Aw, I like your ship designs! I feel like the clunkiness of them suits the narrative you’re telling. That thing in the first panel looks cool, but doesn’t register to me as an Alien vessle the way the mechs or Heady’s hovercraft do.
I doubt Head Alien would be able to stay silent for very long.
Originally Posted:
April 23, 2003
I remember feeling bad for anyone who only saw this strip through Fans!, since they would not have the context to fully appreciate just how great this punchline is.
In many ways, Head Alien is being remarkably overconfident here. If they’ve got the power level he hopes for (we know that they don’t but he doesn’t) then their most likely response to any threatening move on his part would be to just will them both out of existence in a moment.
“In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away —
For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.“