comicshack

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I made an attempt at the start of COVID to try to bring this all back, but the world felt empty and dull, and I fell into all that.  I’m still in it, but I had started this comic about 6 months ago and had since decided to get away from all the copyrighted references.  This was going to be a Matrix sort of reboot, but I have since come up with a number of silly ideas so that I’m not tethered by the real world nerd-dom.  

So this comic picks up about exactly where we left off.  I deleted the last comic from this site, as it was an attempt at telling a different story that just wasn’t the right direction.  Here’s hoping I do more.  At least for my sanity.

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As I said, it had been years since the last one.  I felt the need to end it all, and so I went with a silly idea.  A bit of a 4th wall break. 

This strip was all done on my new computer, a surface pro.  from start to finish. 

So this was the end.  I mean, as much of an end as anything in comics.  If we have an idea, we’ll continue.  

The next thing I did was for doing this project, putting them on tumblr, so people could read them if they wanted.  Sure, they are flawed, but they exist.  So now they have a place to reside here on the web.  I redid the first strip which you can find by going to FIRST.  Apart from that, this is the current end.  Thanks for making it here if you found it!  Hopefully it was fun! 

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After a lengthy break since the last one, I reverted back to my funnies sized strips.  this is probably the best instance of one that I ever did, so I guess I learned something?

This was the last one that was ever written by Matt also. We just didn’t continue on.  

As I misnumbered some time back, this is actually the 100th strip we did of Nat!  

Years later, I decided I didn’t like leaving unfinished story lines so I imagined a way to end it all...again.  

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I did half and half here. Some backgrounds, and some without.  And without Pandy, what sort of comic did we have?  

So we hinted at bringing him back still just as cool as we’d left him.  But we didn’t make it that far. 

I had intended to use another lost story idea of a comic store supervillain named Stanley (Stan Lee...hehe).  He was actually going to be like Lex Luthor, and watching everything happening between the comic stores.  Having a giant room full of TVs showing all comic stores.  And how he pits them against one another.  He would have been this giant villain,but we didn’t get around to it. 

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I was back up to my old tricks of not doing backgrounds...sigh.  

Matt was back to writing these, but we didn’t make it far.  That was my fault.  

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So we tried a return!  Nat’s hair is different (of course) and we have a new store.  I hadwantedto try and just utilize pen and paper on this restart, so that’s what I was going for.  A better balance of black and white.  

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And then I was done!  

At this time the real comic book shop was having roof issues so Craig was looking for a new location as the building owner wasn’t being very helpful.  So with them moving, Matt having left, and me working a busy job, and us just feeling this was well over and done, it was time to bow out.  So this was the end, for a time at least. We did try a very brief comeback, but it didn’t work out. 

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Nat realizes that killing himself in the future makes this future impossible.  Even just knowing the future should change it, right?  But of course it didn’t work.  Pandy is still awesome!  

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I found the font I had been using on my new computer.  

As the last strip was a Star Trek reference, I continued on with that.  I mean, Khan, so why not!

I tried to make it seem like Nat was sad at loosing Pandy, but no, it was having killed himself.  For he was Khan.  

But, with Nat having changed the course of history, er, the future, and this being a comic, Pandy of course isn’t dead.  Just because. 

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This is what all of this was building up to.  The reason why I titled this as a Crisis.  DC comics can’t get past itself and NOT use the Crisis Trope again and again.  When they don’t know what to do...do a crisis.  So why not here?

I wanted to do the classic pose from the beginning and tried to capture it as best as I could.  

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Even in a winning war, things are lost. 

Nat seems most pleased with himself.  To him, this was all necessary.  To him this was putting the world right.  Even at the cost of his own life...in the future!  Well, let’s be honest, Nat doesn’t think ahead.  

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I think I switched computers here, which is why the font on the title was suddenly different.  

I love that Nat will do anything to restore Pandy to what he was.  Even to assume the mantle of the Kahn himself and slaughter an entire people.  

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Cool!  He was going to say cool!  

This is too much for current Nat to handle, and this Nat hasn’t yet lived the future Nat’s life.  The implications are right here!  Nat dies by killing himself in the future!  An endless cycle.  

Nat has a line, and that line is that Pandy is one thing in his mind and that he cannot be anything else, no matter what.  To hear himself reverse this, it was too much.  Nat can’t accept this, and so he dies.  

This is kind of the end of the comic.  Nat dies.  

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The reveal!

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Birds circle, the meal is coming!

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Of course the toy lightsaber wasn’t going to hold up.  But this doesn’t stop Nat from making sound effects!

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This strip was sort of my Manga effort.  I tried to really exaggerate things to some extent, and just have fun with them.  

I like how Nat hasn’t realized it’s him yet!  And of course, both of them speak in Star Wars.