TITLE The Bastich By Hart: Summer "Vacation" Part 3
PANEL 1 (A Subaru Outback drives in congested traffic.) CAPTION: "Finally, it was time to hop into the commute-mobile and head to our first day at work for Mothership Incorporated." BASTICH: ...5o the engineer says: "Why, that's not a refrigerator, sir. That's our new UNIX database server..."
PANEL 2 (Inside the car, BASTICH laughs in the back seat while BAPPER rides shotgun and MTN. DEWD drives.) BASTICH: And the boss replies: "Oh. Well, that would explain why the CHIPS were so stale." Ha! Ha! Get it? I just LOvE that one! BAPPER: Dewd, does your car have an "EJECT" button? MTN. DEWD: Why..? For your seat or his?
PANEL 3 (The car drives past a highway sign that reads "Mothership: 15 Miles") BAPPER: I don't care! Whichever it is, just HIT IT! BASTICH: Here's another one: Two chimps, one baboon, and a Mac User walk into a bar...
PANEL 4 (BASTICH speaks to a security guard.) CAPTION: "After a brisk 60-minute commute, we arrived at Corporate Headquarters. It being our first day on-site, we had to pass through the security desk to get inside..." BASTICH: Do I look like a CRIMINAL to you?! GUARD: Well...
PANEL 5 (Close-up on the GUARD, pointing his finger at an off-panel BASTICH. He is wearing a hat with a shield labeled "THE MAN".) GUARD: Only if being a C-coding, man-page-reading, Linus-worshipping, Macintosh-bashing, Bill-Gates-Loathing, O'Reilly-book-buying, Dr.-Who-watching, They-Might- Be-Giants-listening, Captain-Picard Counselor-Troi-drooling, Dilbert-reading, pencil-necked-beyond-all-possible-recovery GEEK is considered a CRIME.
PANEL 6 (The GUARD presses a hidden button under his desk.) BASTICH: Ha-ha... Good thing it's not, 'cause you'd have to lock almost everybody in this entire building up... Wouldn't you? GUARD: Don't be silly. CAPTION: "That was just about when I heard the main gates slam shut..."
CREDITS Bastich (c) 1997 Joshua Adam Hart
Commentary
The gang heads to their first day working for Mothership Incorporated.
"Mothership" was a stand-in for Hewlett-Packard, where I had three consecutive summer internships. A bunch of CSU Chico students worked for HP part-time during the school year, and returned to "The Mothership" for the summer.
This strip in general is just a bunch of random throw-away jokes. The guard's rant in panel 5 is a laundry list of nerd tropes, most of which would have applied to me.
Bapper's role as the straight man in this strip is the opposite of how he's usually depicted. He's usually the happy-go-luck instigator of hijinks, not prone to stressing out over some dumb jokes.