TITLE The Bastich By Hart
PANEL 1 (An excited BASTICH bursts in on FAITH and HACKER-LAD.) BASTICH: Hold on, Everybody, I've got a PLAN! HACKER-LAD: not again..! FAITH: This better not be another one of your half-baked schemes!
PANEL 2 (BASTICH grins as he raises his index finder into the air.) BASTICH: No, Faith, this scheme has been baked...all the way! I'm going to run for PRESIDENT!
PANEL 3 (HACKER-LAD raises his hand skeptically as BASTICH looks on.) HACKER-LAD: You have got to be kidding, 'Stich! BASTICH: Why? I have every trait you need to be the big cheese... HACKER-LAD: Such as..?
PANEL 4 (BASTICH counts with his fingers as an image of the Flag of the United States of America waves behind him.) BASTICH: Such as charm, wit, political savvy, and of course, I've got the cool hair that wouldn't muss in a 100mph hurricane...
PANEL 5 (BASTICH raises his finger again as FAITH looks on.) BASTICH: Besides, I have one thing over the other candidates... Something that will put me at a certain solid advantage over those other losers... FAITH: oh really..?
PANEL 6 (BASTICH leaps behind the huge CRT monitor of his computer and begins typing frantically as HACKER-LAD and FAITH look on from a distance.) BASTICH: That's right, I've got an INTERNET ACCOUNT! And, by God, I'm not afraid to USE IT! HACKER-LAD: We are well and truly doomed. CAPTION: To Be Continued...
CREDITS (c) 1996 Joshua Adam Hart
Commentary
Ah, to live in such simpler times... This was during the early days of the 1996 U.S. Presidential Election. The ultimate showdown was between incumbent Democrat Bill Clinton, Republican challenger Bob Dole and third-party maverick Ross Perot (I'll try not to spoil the outcome for you here).
During this election cycle, the Internet was still just a nebulous buzzword for most people. Even the hippest politicians struggled to use it effectively in their campaigns. Social media was a good decade away, and the lion's share of online discourse was in primitive online forums like Usenet and IRC, or even (gulp) AOL and CompuServe. Against this backdrop, Bastich thinks he has an edge over those stodgy old has-beens because he knows how to log in.
Ignoring other minor disqualifying details (it's never established just how old Bastich is supposed to be anyway) it seemed outlandish to think Bastich could flamewar his way into an electoral win. Again, I say, simpler times...