Tranquility Base Comic

Friday 28th March, 2008 @ 12:00 GMT

This one for the Star Wars fans. Let me lay my cards on the table - I don't absolutely hate the prequels. On their own terms, if you ignore the original films, they are... sort of, kind of, ok. Except the character Jar Jar Binks who should be consigned to the ninth circle of hell. No actually, he should become a circle of hell all of his own, the tenth circle, where George Lucas will spend eternity having his eyes plucked out by Jar Jar saying "meesa gonna plucka yousa eyeses out!" Then, during the periods when his eyes aren't being plucked out, he'll have to look at LOL-Ewoks until he he wishes his eyes were being plucked out. I've considered this very carefully, at great length. Hence, the motivation behind this episode.

Just to confirm, it is the same time traveller that we saw in episode 16.

The "Grandfather Paradox" mentioned in the episode title is, roughly, this: if a time traveller goes into the past and kills his biological grandfather before he has met his biological grandmother, then one of the time traveller's parents was never born, resulting in the time traveller never being born, meaning he couldn't have gone back in time to kill his grandfather. But then... if he couldn't go back and kill his grandfather, then his grandfather does meet his grandmother, they do have children and the time traveller is born, meaning he is able to go into the past and kill his biological grandfather before he has met his biological grandmother, resulting in... you get the picture.

The first panel in this episode is actually a Quantum Leap reference (see also set right what once went wrong). The last panel uses some image manipulation trickery. The photo was taken twice; once with the red minifig supported in a "jumping" position with hinges and trans-clear bricks; and once without the minifig there at all. The two images were then superimposed to remove the visible supports. Actually, I lie, my minifigs really can jump!