TITLE The Bastich By Hart
PANEL 1 (BASTICH flails as he falls into a psychedelic spiral of Bastich glasses.) BASTICH: Help me... I'm drowning... in a sea... of BASTICHES!
PANEL 2 (BASTICH suddenly wakes up in bed, wearing his pajamas.) BASTICH: GAH--! What an un-keen dream! I gotta remember to microwave my Budget Gourmet meals BEFORE eating them!
PANEL 3 (A second BASTICH wakes up to his left. This one has short hair and a more angular style, as he appeared in the first strip.) PAST-STICH: GAH--! What an un-keen dream! Hey... you look familiar. What's with the hair? BASTICH: What the--!? It's me from over a year ago! It wasn't a dream after all!
PANEL 4 (The GREAT COMIC JUDGE appears in a wavy cloud in front of BASTICH.) JUDGE: That is correct, fool! BASTICH: The Great Comic Judge! JUDGE: I just finished cleaning up the mess you left in your wake, but I thought I'd leave behind a little token of my... appreciation... ENJOY!
PANEL 5 (BASTICH puts his head in his hands as PAST-STICH looks on.) BASTICH: What a jerk! What'd I do to deserve this punishment!? PAST-STICH: No kidding! I woke up to find out that I'm going to wind up looking like YOU!
PANEL 6 (A third BASTICH with giant hair appears to their right, yawning.) FUTURE-STICH: Gah-! What an un-keen dream! BASTICH: Suddenly, I know EXACTLY how you feel.
CREDITS Bastich (c) 1996 Joshua Adam Hart
Commentary
Enter: Multi-stich.
I don't remember if I had this in mind when I started this storyline, but years later I still think it was a fun idea (not that I put it to the best use). These guys will appear in a few more strips before being swept under the rug.
PAST-STICH is meant to look like the very first strip, which was drawn directly in Photoshop 3.x using the line and fill bucket tools. FUTURE-STICH is pretty much BASTICH with ginormous hair.
Budget Gourmet was just one of many brands of cheap microwave "meals" that were already everywhere in the 1990s. Most of the time, they would either end up with a block of ice in the center or a charred rubber skin on the surface. Technology marches on and these kinds of meals have gotten much better since then, even if they still can't exactly be called "health" food.