A timely Britney reference!
I'm glad the rest of you are finally getting on the Britney bandwagon in lieu of that doc on Hulu. Welcome. I've been here since the early aughts. As an ironic college guy thing I got really into Britney Spears in like 2000. This ironic running gag resulted in me getting Oops... I did it Again on cd for my birthday from my roommate. This was intended as a gag gift on top of an ironic running joke and guess what? I loved that album. I'm glad people are having some empathy for her now and also that I named this comic book story after her. It's not my best work. Sorry Britney.
Page 1:
Panel one is me finally figuring out how I was gonna handle backgrounds in this series. I came to love doing these super abstract aerial Vegas shots. It was another advantage of setting things in a fictional Vegas. I just made these skylines look cool and didn't worry about the geography.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand then right back to genre trope gags. Like I do.
Page 2:
Hey, Locke cleans up nice! Too bad 2002 Tim is clearly still struggling with body language a bit. This is definitely the point in my illustration career where I was better at drawing someone doing a spin kick than just walking. The joke lands well enough and that actually does look like a Vegas casino except for the fact that there's no one there... Was there a pandemic in this future Vegas too or was 2002 Tim just lazy. YOU DECIDE!
Page 3:
Ungh. I'm with the dealer. Locke IS a dork. Nothing says authenticity like a character who doesn't know how to talk to women being written by a guy who didn't know how to talk to women.
Once again the casino details are right. That's what dealers do. good thing I spent a lot of time in Vegas in the first decade of the 2000s.
Page 4:
I'm not sure what's going on with this dealer's bone structure but she just looks... weird. Not only did 2003 Tim not know how to talk to women he was still getting there in terms of drawing them, I guess.
I'm pretty sure I scanned a deck of cards to make the cards on this page. That's probably not legal so don't tell anyone.
Page 5:
You're right Locke! This guy sucks. I'm not sure where the phrase "Johnny Slick-Nuts" slipped into my vocabulary and more importantly why it ever left but I will start applying this term to internet thirst-trap guys immediately. (In some ways I have not matured THAT much, I guess.)
And that pick-up line WAS horrible. The art in this story may be rocky but 2002 Tim is getting the reaction he wanted here.
Page 6:
Oh wow. Really turning up the heat here. Again this was written by a guy without a ton of adult romantic experience. There's no way an intelligent woman would fall for this crap so apologies for THAT but the gag works. I love seeing Locke get simultaneously more poor and more drunk. Not a bad little coin flip effect in there too.
Page 7:
Aw. Based on this interaction Locke had clearly been friend-zoned before this story even began. There was no chance of victory here. That doesn't mean he can't salvage his night...
These cartoon hamsters where a blast to draw.
Page 8:
Hey if you and your consenting partner are into BDSM and none of those hamsters are getting hurt then good on you. Clearly our dealer with amorphous bone-structure is not into it. This panel was an absolute blast to draw. I love those little hamsters. Especially the one jumping on the bed. What a little rascal.
"Making whoppie" is yet another Mallrats reference. After two shorts and one major arc, I think we're at about 478 Kevin Smith references.
This story might feel kind of like a pointless one-off joke but there was actually a reason I wanted to underscore Locke's trouble with the ladies here. That will start paying off in the next major story.
NEXT WEEK: Dinner and a Robbery