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No. 77: Search your feelings. Logic isn't going to help here.

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Search your feelings. Logic isn't going to help here.

First | Previous | 2016-07-13 | Next | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/pomh/?comic=77

Strip by: Ian Boreham

{A defeated Luke Skywalker is clutching with his one remaining hand onto a pipe to avoid falling.}
Luke: You killed my paternal grandfather!

{Darth Vader is reaching out to Luke as Luke repositions himself.}
Vader: I... I what?
Vader [thinks]: Umm... [imagines a family tree with Luke's parents Padme and Vader shown, and Vader's parents: a collection of smiling, blobby midichlorians, and Shmi]
Vader: Er...no... You see...

{Vader is still reaching out.}
Vader: Have you heard about midichlorians? Tiny life force thingies pervading living matter?
Vader: I am your father. I was a virgin birth...because of the midichlorians...

{Luke is crying.}
Luke: Nooo! That's Impossible! And Stupid!

{Vader is looking to the side, thinking.}
Vader [thinks]: Impossible? Implausible at least, now I come to think about it...
Vader: OK. You got me. I killed your dad and his dad.
Vader: And, I'd...er... I'd appreciate it if you didn't go telling people about the midichlorians thing.

The author writes:

As usual, I'm glad nobody else ever thought about making fun of this scene. Or midichlorians.

I'm imagining Vader here thinking through the midichlorians business for the first time and realising it's a bit lame. A bit like an ex-Scientologist thinking "Did I really believe in Thetans and Xenu?" And that pseudoscientific gear that Qui-Gon used to "test" Anakin's midichlorian count: like an E-meter.

The second panel is a bit clunky. Originally I was going to have Vader imagining the family tree entirely inside a thought bubble, but the frame would have been crowded, and since I already had an image with Luke in it, I thought he could be part of the tree directly. Overall, the panel is more confusing than I'd like it to be, but frankly, I'd rather get on with making the next strip than spending more time fixing this one.

I just discovered that "midichlorians" should have been hyphenated as "midi-chlorians". Well, if they fix the idiocies in the plot, I'll fix the punctuation.

Constructed in Inkscape using stills from the Star Wars movies and a warped imagination. I don't own the Star Wars movies. I am not Disney.