TITLE The Bastich By Hart
PANEL 1 (A giant sign that reads "1 MILLION WORLDS CONQUERED" sits atop a massive ringed planet orbited by a metallic moon.) CAPTION: Meanwhile, on a distant world in the entrails of the galaxy... GOLABUTRON: (Somewhere on the planet) Ah... It is a good day to Plunder!
PANEL 2 (GOLABUTRON, a tall sinister figure in dark robes and an elongated helmet with a hose protruding from the back, looks out a window into space atop a platform as a DROID approaches from below.) GOLABUTRON: Status Report! DROID: It has been a productive cycle, oh commanding one. Jupiter 2 , Melmak, Ork, and Remulak have all fallen before the might of our armada. GOLABUTRON: What is the word on McWorld?
PANEL 3 (The DROID holds up a device so it can read the report.) DROID: It Can Happen!™ Also, we still await a field report from our Nega Quadrant Invasion Scout, Char'L. We lost contact with his scout vessel near Sol 3 several chronotrons ago.
PANEL 4 (Close up on GOLABUTRON placing his hand on the window and continuing to stare into space.) GOLABUTRON: Char'L..? That name is strikingly familiar. It brings to mind a peculiar odor...
PANEL 5 (Close up on the DROID.) DROID: Er, just a minor janitorial error, High Lord. Nothing of note I assure you... Char'L is an exceptional scout. He is no doubt painstakingly compiling his pre-invasion analysis and building a strategy for takeover as we speak.
PANEL 6 (Cut to CHAR'L and BASTICH watching television. The tiny alien scout is sitting on the top of the couch and both are waving their fists excitedly.) CAPTION: Elsewhere... CHAR'L: Tell 'im how it is, Rikki! BASTICH: You GO Girl..!
CREDITS (c) 1996 Joshua Adam Hart
Commentary
The third and (so far) final entry in the cosmic arc introduces Golabutron, the namesake of the G3K website and blog.
The name "Golabutron" is a jumble of Golobulus from G.I. Joe and Megatron/Galvatron from Transformers. It was an intentionally-ridiculous name for a farcical villain in a comic I was working on with a friend in high school. That comic never materialized but the character stuck in my mind for years.
Naturally, the list of worlds conquered are all pop culture references. Here they are:
The joke about a "minor janitorial error" was most likely inspired by the Space Quest game series, which I was introduced to by the friend who let me crash at his place during my summer internship with HP.
In the last panel, Bastich and Char'L are watching Ricki Lake, one of those trashy daytime talk shows that were everywhere in the 1990s. Just a few weeks after his crash landing, Char'L has assimilated into Earth culture (as presented by Bastich).