Recall: #184

Recall: No. 184

Slothrop has a mom. That’s not really news, but it never occurred to me before. Anyway, he apparently sent her a copy of #184 bc it reminded him of how his dad used to disappear after meals to sit on the couch & watch football. His mom replied that it would’ve been funnier, visually, if the turtle had *already* disappeared into the shell & he should change it. (She’s got strong opinions about sight gags apparently, so the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.) Anyway, Slothrop told her he might agree with her, but it’d already been published, so it was “official canon” & there was nothing to be done about it. Mrs. Slothrop replied that was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard & he was the boss & could just decide to republish it if he wanted to. (I have to interject here to point out that Slothrop is not, in fact the boss. He is one of 9 Committee members who, in theory, have equal say in how this place is run, bc our organization was designed by an imbecile. Slothrop’s authority is derived entirely from the passivity of the other 8 swivel chair potatoes, as I believe I have pointed out before.) Nevertheless, Mrs. Slothrop is correct. The Committee could indeed decide to do this. This dawned on her son at some point in the exchange, & he suddenly became unconcerned w hypocrisy, since he was the leading proponent of the “Canon is Canon” policy that squelched updates (successfully) to #97 and (unsuccessfully) to #155 (which was later nominated for a Golden Square Award at PanelCon ‘19). But bygones, I guess, bc Slothrop told his mother that yes, in fact, he could do that & he would do that. And so here we have #184 again, w the same caption, sans Syd’s head bc Mama Slothrop says it’s funnier this way, canon be damned. Fwiw, I think she was right on both counts. It is funnier this way & the world will go in with 2 versions floating around the interweb. (I didn’t mention I put out the wrong version of #178 to the same effect, so there’s precedent for this, but let’s keep that to ourselves.) I’m posting both versions side by side. Interested in your thoughts... -Ed.