And thus ends another chapter of the B-movie Comic – for this is now, at last and irrevocably the last little coda of the epilogue and the final strip of the whole chapter.
Against my usual habit, I don’t return to the start with it…at least not exactly. Instead, the chapter closes out with a new beginning, of a story that lies beyond the scope of this webcomic – for reasons of intellectual copyright and many others. At the same time it is still something like a return for the beginning – for this strip features the original cast of the old D&D cartoon show, which was a key (if far from the only) source of inspiration for everything that went down in this chapter.
Finding the abandoned ride in the middle of the Amazon basin*, they are (unknowingly) about to embark on their own adventure in the world of (beat) Stockades & Skeletons. After overriding Eric’s quite valid concerns, as usual – which they will never acknowledge later, also as usual. Eric’s concerns weren’t always valid, of course, but not infrequently – and it never made any difference, he was overruled by the majority in every case, because that’s what his character was there for. His was, indeed, one of the sorrier lots a cartoon character could be given – according to series developer Mark Evanier, that was in reaction to pressure from ‘concerned parents’, which demanded a ‘pro-social’ message.
Anyway, thanks for sticking around for this chapter! Hope you enjoyed it, and see you again for the next chapter which will begin (drumroll) on Thursday. ._.
* Without any explanation for their presence there, of course. Par for the course for the scripting on this sort of show would have been a school trip, or one character inheriting an abandoned mine from an estranged uncle. Feel free to pick one of those, or something similar, if the lack of explanation doesn’t work for you.
Which is one of the good things about the final D&D script. It’s Eric who finally does everything right adn get’s everything fixed.
Yeah, I guess the writers themselves weren’t happy about what they had to put Eric through in the course of the show, and took the opportunity to set that right in that non-canonical ending. Of course, had the network execs decided to actually produce a final episode, they’d certainly insisted on altering that part of the script to make Eric be wrong again… XD
Oh, wow, I just realized I forgot to leave my big comment on this chapter! Reading it live threw me off – first time since Chapter 2, after all! What a ride.
I’m genuinely interested to see if this is the retirement of the Professor, or just a plot hook for the next chapter. I could see it going either way! On the one hand, he IS an iconic character, practically a cornerstone of the B-Movie verse. On the other hand, changing the dynamic could result in some good, new changes. See where all this goes!
Good work, Gregory. You finally got a big role! Proud of you, my boy. …So is he still semi-undead, or is he just 100% alive thanks to the S&S adventure?
I’ll honestly miss the wacky designs of the S&S versions of the characters. They were a nice way to do the chapter changeups… at this rate I could do a tier list of how the characters looked in each chapter. S through D or something by personal preference. Maybe after I see the inevitable makeovers of Chapter 8, huh?
Anyhow! Time to fully read Chapter 8 as it comes out without any archive binging of earlier chapters. It’ll be weeeird.
Happy to hear you made it through Chapter 7 – it was quite a ride for me, as well, due to circumstances surrounding it. But I’m not totally unhappy with the end result. I think.
As for the Professor…well, naturally I can’t state it publicly, but I know where I’m going with that, or rather, for which of those two options I’m going… … … but to tell the full truth, I’ve set it all up in a way that I maintain the ability to rescind that decision and switch to the other tack later, should I become unhappy with it. XD So, in a way, there isn’t even a 100% definite answer to that question as of now.
And yeah, Gregory is fully alive now, or at least his former undead status will no longer be mentioned or acknowledged in this chapter – I think just dropping the whole issue is the most B-movieish way to deal with such a fundamental character change. XD
I would definitely be interested in that rating of the character designs, if you’re really willing to go to such lengths. And, yeah, there will be a round of makeovers at the inception of the new chapter – their return to their Chapter 6 designs at the end of Chapter 7 was just a stop-gap.