TITLE The Bastich By Hart
CAPTION: Last week, our hero was exiled to another strip to prevent further damage to the comic strip continuum...
NOTE: The next three panels are in the style of DILBERT.
TITLE Dilstich
PANEL 1 (DILSTICH is sitting across a desk from his pointy-haired BOSS.) BOSS: IN ORDER TO CATCH UP WITH OUR COMPETITION, I TOLD THE MARKETING DEPARTMENT TO START PROMOTING VERSION 1O OF OUR PRODUCT FOR RELEASE NEXT MONDAY.
PANEL 2 (Close up on DISTICH.) DILSTICH: BUT ALL WE HAVE OF VERSION ONE IS A CUTE ICON AND A MEMO TELLING US TO COME UP A MATCHING ACRONYM. BOSS: MAYBE YOU SHOULD MAKE MORE ICONS.
PANEL 3 (The BOSS is now strapped securely to a giant rocket as DILSTICH stands behind a plunger detonator, ready to push down.) DILSTICH: SOMETHING DEEP IN MY HEART TELLS ME THIS IS WRONG. LUCKILY, IT'S TOO DEEP TO STOP ME.
CAPTION: "ENOUGH! Bastich has soiled yet ANOTHER decent strip!"
PANEL 4 (BASTICH appears before the GREAT COMIC JUDGE with a pop.) BASTICH: Hey I'm ME again! JUDGE: That is correct, you bespectacled infidel! You are being sent back to your own strip. At least nobody READS that one! BASTICH: Cool!
PANEL 5 (The JUDGE flips a lever on a device labeled TRANS-IT-TRON as BASTICH disintegrates.) JUDGE: Prepare yourself for the transfer. I sincerely hope it is unpleasant. BASTICH: YOWCH!
PANEL 6 (INSET panel of the JUDGE in shock over a wide shot of several versions of BASTICH based on different comic characters, including Hagar the Horrible, Garfield, Blondie's Dagwood, Popeye, the Tick and Dilbert.) JUDGE: Ah, good riddance... Eh... What is this..? Oh No..! Something must have gone wrong in the transfer! What did I do to deserve this?! CAPTION: Next week: Crisis of Infinite Bastiches
CREDITS Bastich (c) 1996 Joshua Adam Hart
Commentary
The Multi-stich saga continues to continue!
We have another DILBERT spoof, this time mimicking the corporate humor that grew to dominate the strip. It ends in an edgy extreme that the original would typically not do, but this was a pretty generic DILBERT gag for the time.
After this, we don't get any more parodies of real comics, so I just squeeze a bunch of them into the final panel.
The caption at the end is a riff on Crisis on Infinite Earths, if you hadn't guessed.