TITLE The Bastich By Hart
PANEL 1 (BASTICH and FAITH are having a conversation while walking outside.) BASTICH: ...and so Voyager's pivoting warp nacelles alter the warp-field dynamics... in such a way as to allow it to exceed warp factor 5 without causing the damage to the space-time continuum established in episode #160, "Force of Nature"... FAITH: Exactly! BASTICH: Cool!
PANEL 2 (An athletic-looking DUDE with short black hair and a tank top approaches and addresses them both.) DUDE: Whoa, you know, I couldn't help but overhear your little conversation. BASTICH: Yeah..? DUDE: You're like, total losers!
PANEL 3 (Close up on the DUDE pointing his finger.) DUDE: I mean, you follow that stupid television show as if it were, like, some kind of gospel. You're a bunch of freaking fanatics - a CULT! No way would I be caught sitting there on my ass all day like that! It's just a TV Show! Get a life!
PANEL 4 (The DUDE walks away grumbling. FAITH and BASTICH face each other.) FAITH: Hurm...what do you suppose is eating him? BASTICH: Something to do with a national athletic tournament three days past in which he lost 300 regional currency units in an unwise wager... FAITH: The Super Bowl was last Sunday, eh..? I THOUGHT the streets were rather empty. BASTICH: I was hoping it was a U.F.O. invasion, personally.
CREDITS (c) 1996 Joshua Adam Hart
Commentary
This strip was originally supposed to kick off the Spring 1996 semester in the January 31, 1996 issue of The Orion, but they ran an older strip instead. I can't remember if it was an editorial decision or if I missed the submission deadline. I don't think the light swearing of "sitting on my ass" would have been a problem. Despite it all, the student body of Chico State somehow pulled through without their new Bastich fix that week.
As for the premise, I really bought into the whole "nerds vs. jocks" thing when I was growing up. It was the "popular dumb kids who only care about sports" versus the "unpopular smart kids who liked sci-fi and computers". This strip was either a surrender to that trope or a too-clever subversion of it.
Nowadays I actually enjoy watching the occasional sportsball game, but I needed Wikipedia to tell me that the "unwise wager" in question was that the Pittsburg Steelers would beat the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl XXX instead of losing by 27-17. Or perhaps this guy put it all on a surprise win for the Miami Dolphins - I don't know.
Meanwhile, we have a return to the topic of Voyager's warp nacelles after a mention in "Shaving". I just couldn't get enough of those things!