TITLE The Bastich By Hart
PANEL 1 (HACKER-LAD sits gleefully in front of a giant desktop computer and CRT monitor.) HACKER-LAD: Nyeh-Heh-Heh... Burn, my little microprocessors, BURN--!
PANEL 2 (An explosion erupts from the top of the computer.) SFX: PAF--!
PANEL 3 (HACKER-LAD sits in the same position, now covered in soot while smoke billows from the computer.) HACKER-LAD: That's hardly what I meant
PANEL 4 (HACKER-LAD approaches BASTICH, who is sitting at his own computer.) HACKER-LAD: Yo, 'Stich! I need to use your computer to access the comp.os.linux.cpu.fried FAQ... BASTICH: Sorry, man, my PC's busy downloading the latest beta of 3-D Demon Blood Fest.
PANEL 5 (FAITH approaches HACKER-LAD.) FAITH: Don't worry, H.L., you can use MY computer if you want. HACKER-LAD: THE MAC!? FAITH: You COULD just use the GAME BOY! HACKER-LAD: Same difference--!
PANEL 6 (HACKER-LAD sits at FAITH's Macintosh machine as she stands behind him.) FAITH: See, this isn't so bad, is it...? HACKER-LAD: Where's the command line? FAITH: Look, just double-click the Not-scape icon...
PANEL 7 (Close up on HACKER-LAD as he grows increasingly panicked.) HACKER-LAD: I have to click TWICE?! What is this crap?! These icons make no sense! How do I eject a floppy disk? What does THIS button do..? So... UNPREDICTABLE!!
PANEL 8 (HACKER-LAD runs off in the distance as FAITH looks to BASTICH in front of her Mac, now with a giant sad face on the screen.) FAITH: Great. He just formatted my hard drive. BASTICH: Heh... The World Wide Web may be device-independent, but it appears Hacker-Lad is not.
CREDITS (c) 1996 Joshua Adam Hart
Commentary
It's about time Hacker-Lad and Faith made another meaningful appearance.
It's unstated, but Bastich is running Windows 95, which SORT OF has a command-line with MS-DOS, which is why Hacker-Lad goes to him first. If this strip had been made after MacOS X was released, HL would have gone to Faith first to get his Unix fix.
Need I mention that Not-scape is a pun on the Netscape browser (R.I.P.)? Probably not. Move along.
Meanwhile, just look at all of those giant, glorious CRT monitors! Computers were still basically furniture in the mid-1990s!