Backtracking in Practice

For each important feature of the Cerebus transition [G], two comics have been chosen out of the four example comics. One comic has been chosen to help exemplify how to do the element correctly, and one to show how the element can be done poorly or what the pitfalls are. For Backtracking, the comic that does this well is College Roomies from Hell!!! [G], and the comic that does it poorly is General Protection Fault [G].

College Roomies from Hell!!!

CRFH!!! clearly shows that just because you shouldn't try to flip everything back to the way it was before your transition doesn't mean you can't be funny again.

The first storyline to feature huge amounts of serious story was the epic-length The Adversary [G]. The storyline immediately following it, The Devil's Avocado, is one of the sillier storylines the strip offers (it involves satanists Waldo and Steve [G] trying to obtain the Devil's Avocado [G] to make the Guacamole of DOOOOOM.) The key is that while the tone may become lighthearted again, the characters always have to deal with the aftereffects of previous storylines. There's no button to press that suddenly makes everything okay.

The Adversary, as one of the most important storylines to the strip, of course has lasting consequences, but even less important stories like The F Word [G] have elements that carry over into other storylines (long story short, they make an enemy that comes back later to get them in a lot of trouble.) When important things happen in CRFH!!!, or even often unimportant things, the changes are permanent, and they matter. There's no quick wrap up in the twenty-seventh minute so that they can all be a happy, non-mutated family again.

Onwards to discuss GPF