And thus Biff concludes the intermission in style.
I’m not saying it’s good style…or even just average style…or even anything above bottom-of-the-barrel style, but it’s undeniably style.
In conclusion:
The first part of the intermission demonstrated that the changes in the timeline caused by our heroes have only marginally affected their universe – it’s a little bit more bizarre than our world, but given how bizarre our world is, it’s hardly much of a difference.
And the foreshadowing part uncovered two valuable pieces of information: Gregory is no longer a full-half-dead zombie, but at most a half-half-dead one. Or perhaps even only a quarter-half-dead one (which would make him less dead than most normal people are before their first cup of coffee in the morning). Specifics to be revealed later.
And the second important piece of information: The villain of the next chapter is going to be TV’s Frank’s mother. Unless it’s spinach, after all.
But, anyway, the intermission is over, and whoever the villain of the next chapter might happen to be, the chapter starts on Thurs…uh, sorry, Monday.
And lo and behold, I have finished Chapter 5 of the B-Movie Comic! What a ride it was, too. I wasn’t expecting time travel, but it does make sense – after all, what self-respecting B-Movie wouldn’t abuse time travel? Fully expecting that in the proud tradition of B-Movies we will never see any problems arising from the massive changes to the timeline, ever again.
With regards to the continuing saga of Mopey… yeah, her first design in this chapter was a bit too drastic a change away from goth. Second one’s solid, though! That’s some real Mopey right there. Also, Gregory finally getting his intelligence back felt like a good time to make the call too – it was good fodder in Chapter 4 and this one, but had he just been BRAINS in the 6th chapter that would have stretched the joke thin, even for this comic! And that’s saying something!
I’m excited to see how Nolan reuses Silhouette Mountain and the death scene in Chapter 6. (it always feels interesting to me that a lot of the comic’s most iconic stuff didn’t start until Chapter 2 or later). Speaking of which, off into that chapter I go!
Or rather: What self-respecting movie, save a B-movie, would use time-travel? XD Writing chapter 5 really hammered home for me how incredibly difficult it would be to write a time-traveling plot that actually makes sense and isn’t riddled with plot-holes like a piece of Swiss cheese. Aside from the issue of predicting and constraining the consequences of changes to the timeline, there’s the issue of not really being able to compel the protagonists (and antagonists) to chose a specific course of action. As long as they have a working time machine, they have countless different options of how to achieve a desired end, and that’s actually a big problem as far as a narrative is concerned. And then there’s the issue of paradoxes… Fortunately, I didn’t have to write a plot that makes sense and isn’t riddled with plot-holes like a piece of Swiss cheese.
As for Mopey’s first design in this chapter…yeah. I had been looking around goth fashion sites for inspiration, and that particular style actually does look quite clearly “goth” in a real-life application. But that somehow didn’t translate well to comic style, and for the first time, I made a mid-chapter redesign. In the case of Gregory, I can’t really claim a lot of clever foresight…I simply realized his character had run its course in its current form due to how little I found to do for him in this chapter. XD So it was obvious I had to either write him out, or empower him to become more of a full-fledged character in the next chapter – and I decided for the latter.
I hope you’ll enjoy Chapter 6.