TITLE The Bastich By Hart
PANEL 1 (Bastich waves to the reader) BASTICH: Hi, everybody... I'm BASTICH, and this is my comic strip!
PANEL 2 (Bastich raises his right index finger to the air) BASTICH: For a while now, my adventures have been published for all to see in two formats: Here on the world wide web, and over at the Orion... Now, I can't help but wonder... HOW CAN A GUY GET ANY PRIVACY AROUND HERE!?
PANEL 3 (Bastich holds both hands up, palms forward) BASTICH: Every time I turn my head, somebody's opening up the paper, or clicking on a link to my homepage, disrupting my solitude! I haven't been able to shower in over 49 days!
PANEL 4 BASTICH: Well, I'm not gonna stand for this one more second! I'm outta here..! (Bastich revs up, smashing through the right-hand border of PANEL 4) SFX: SMASH!
PANEL 5 (Clouds of dust scatter as both sides of PANEL 5 are destroyed) SFX: CRASH!
PANEL 6 SFX: THUD! (Bastich's has become lodged in the credits box at the end of the strip, with his arms and legs sticking out into PANEL 6. Faith stands behind him, her hair flowing from Bastich's fast movement) FAITH: Uh, 'Stich, I don't think that's exactly what they mean by "breaking the fourth wall." BASTICH: Just keep smiling, Faith...
CREDITS (c) 1995 Joshua Adam Hart
Commentary
Ah, meta humor and puns... The visual gag worked better in the single-row format, because the "fourth wall" was literally the fourth wall between panels (if you don't count the title). But I think it tracks well enough when broken into two rows.
Bastich's math only sort of adds up: This was the 7th weekly strip published in the Orion, so print readers would only have seen him for 42 days on the day this was published, not 49. He must have had some other reason for not showering for that extra week.
This was a rare case where the print and web versions had intentional differences. I usually made the print version first (usually under deadline duress) and then tweaked the art and script before posting the definitive version to the web. But in this case, the scripts had to be slightly different because Bastich was addressing a different audience.
I can't say I'm a fan of Bastich's last line to Faith. The original "hardy har har" from the print version was pretty weak, but the replacement isn't any funnier and just comes off as menacing. Ah, hindsight.
Two more notes: