So Long, Stumpville

So Long, Stumpville

Posted by Brian • May 24, 2016

Original Release Date: February 13, 2003

I spelled San Francisco wrong in the comic for a long time, including twice on this page. My friend Izzie finally had to bring it to my attention. At first, I intended to cover for the misspelling by having Mike and Stu travel to a fictional town in Oregon that used my incorrect spelling. Eventually, I made the better decision to fess up to my mistake. I realized this fictional San FranSisco in a state other than California would be way too convoluted and way too much of a pain to explain to confused readers.

I included a callback to the first page here: Wasted Space Filler, Inc. is the business that sits next door to Bob's TV and Bridge Repair Service, and here it is again in the second panel. I like continuity, and this (I hope) helped to develop that. The reader can imply that Bob's is just off-panel to the right, and that's why a truck would be sitting there. Why not just have Bob's in the background? I'll give you one guess: with my newfound drawing ability, I was afraid it would be too complicated to draw.

We get a proper introduction to Irrational Robot Antagonist (IRA) here, another one of the mayor's bounty hunters out to get Stu. I had such high hopes for IRA and his brethen (whom we will catch a glimpse of later), but I just couldn't fit them in to the story as effectively as I would have liked, and they are eventually written out in Volume 3, by way of a newspaper headline stating they had been destroyed by a team of teenage superheroes.

Lastly, this would be the first appearance of non-flat-top Mike. His hair would continue to evolve and somehow never get easier to draw. If there is one thing I have erased and re-drawn more than anything else in my life, it's Mike's hair.