Full page today. Lots explained. If you’re new to the comic, you will want to read the “Road Trip” storyline and all of this will make sense. This really wraps up the “Lost Weekend” story very well as we now know who the mystery man was that paid off their debt and bought Lorraine’s special home brew beer Old Hemp 420.
Yes, I have planned all along to reveal that it was Dr. Carlin who was the mystery man, but I did not have a good way of doing it. The Polaroids as a flashback device finally dropped into my fried brain last week! Yes, I wrote this last week. The core has been around for a long time, but with the Polaroid angle, I had to rewrite it all.
One note… the Devil is coming back to taunt Bud one more time. (She’s in the 5th panel)
Okay, any questions you can post in the comments and I’ll do my best to explain them. I am taking the rest of the week off to do commissions. Gotta keep everyone happy. Also, I’m just tired. Age does that sometimes. 🙂
It is ABOUT time I used this song! Boston’s debut album was worn out on my turntable several times. And this song perfectly describes not only Dr. Carlin’s situation, but really the whole root of what 1977 is about... sex, drugs and rock and roll! So, after nearly 5 years, I finally get around to using Boston’s “Smokin'” as the tune of the day! Light ’em if you got ’em and crank this sucker up!
httpvh://youtu.be/5GzMx9CnhVk
I work at Coors and I wish that’s what was in it! Well still can’t beat getting free beer.
I walked in the stream that feeds the Coors plant (well, in 1981) in Golden, Colorado. So I have a long history of Coors. I also picked Coors because that was the beer featured in “Smokey and the Bandit” and I have a quickie tribute coming to that movie here soon as the guys end up in the ’77 Trans Am featured in the movie.
🙂
Old joke around here.
“I pissed in the Genesee River!”
i smell coors some nights. love that burning malt smell. 😀
No questions (yet). Brilliant and vastly entertaining way to pull off some complicated and lengthy exposition! Really gave me a huge grin to see Dr. Carlin show up again … to give him an extra-huge, full panel feature like this is a real treasure. And he’s clearly going to be part of the larger story in the future. Somehow I see him in the current day running a cannabis healthcare clinic in one of the progressive, cool states. 😎
Well played, man. Well played! 😀
Thanks! I really enjoyed doing this and as usual stuck in a bunch of little things that I hope people catch!
😛
Thanks for the whole page today, it was a real treat (especially the return of Dr. Carlin!) I was surprised that you didn’t link the Talking Heads “Burning Down the House” instead of Elton, but that was your call. I hope you raise enough funds with your commissions and sales to offset the bills for a while, your comic is a real treat to wake up to!
Thanks again for the funny!
I have used that Talking Heads song before and I try not to repeat myself.
Thanks for reading and I’ll be back next week, no worries. 🙂
hmmm…when they said Golden Colorado I just thought it had bear pee in it.
Well, it had Byron pee in it back in 1981 as I *had* to piss in the stream that fed the plant. Just seemed like the manly thing to do…
😛
more like mountain lion pee.
Does Dr. Carlin have a habit of driving backwards?
No, but he certainly has no sense of direction either… 😛
LOL… I just noticed I drew him driving on the wrong freakin’ side of the road! Damn, that’s not what I was going for!
I will have to update this one… damn… Next time hit the old fart upside the head with a 2×4 as I’m a bit thick sometimes. I am English you now.
😛
More to the point, he’s driving with the steering wheel on the USA side (left) – so I assumed he was on the opposite side of the road due to being stoned!
Well, that works too… but I’ll own up to screwing up this one. What a goof I am…
😛
Awrite! Great stip Byron, & with it I get to tie in today’s strip reference to Coors with tonite’s NCAA basketball final! As a kid in the late 60’s, I lived in Louisville KY for about a year & 1/2, & after moving back to my hometown of Albuquerque, kept in contact for many years with a couple of the KY neighborhood buds – one of whom, Steve, ended up going to UK in Lexington. During spring break of… wait for it… 1977, Steve was heading back to Lex on his way back from a cousin’s wedding in Phoenix, came thru Albq & stayed with me for a couple of days. He caught the band I was in at the time both nights he was here, & as he just so happened to have been working as a bouncer at one of the college bars in Lex, said he’d probably be able to get us a gig there if we were interested. Hell Yeah; any excuse for a road trip – especially if it was for a paying gig! While he was here, Steve probably went thru 2 cases of Coors. He loved the stuff – you couldn’t get it in KY at the time, and while in AZ & NM was loadin’ up on it. He left with a cassete recording of a couple of our sets from one nite, and as much Coors as he could cram in his trunk. When He got back to Lex, he played us for his boss who liked what he heard & booked us for two weeks. When Steve got ahold of me to tell us the news, he also says “when you come out, bring as much Coors as you can! You can get 8-9 bucks a sixer for it here!” Now, this was when a case of Cooors was going for about $6.50… so over the week & 1/2 we had before we left Albq, we managed to buy about 45 cases, loaded it into the back of the equipment van, & headed to KY! Ironically – this was about 2 months before “Smokey & the Bandit” came out. Steve had all kinds of connections with the frats & tons of folks there – we sold every thing we brought in less than a week at 9 bucks a six, & then as the supply dwindled, 10, 12, & at the end, 15 bucks a six – 2 1/2 times what a case had cost us! I could never understand it – I’ve always hated Coors – think it litterally is made from piss… It’s also amazing that we didn’t get busted ’cause the word was out all over the college & we had a steady stream of folks to Steve’s apt. where we were staying, & to the van during set breaks at the bar. Needless to say, between the $ for the gig & the beer, a very profitable trip – one of the few where we actually came back with money, & we had a blast! Thus I have many fond memories of Lexington & UK, so that being said, for tonite: GO ‘CATS!!!
You should be writing this comic, not I. The bands I was in were never that ambitious, we just did local bars and Frat parties. I think we all enjoyed the lifestyle too much to put much effort into promoting ourselves, or for that fact, rehearsing all that much.
Great story! Keep them coming! 😛
Coors always had this mystique around it… since it was hard to get it must be great beer. For my part, once your drunk, you might as well drink the cheapest beer you can buy as you’re just gonna give it all back to the porcelain thrown at the end of the night (at least I did mostly). So, I’d get a buzz with a few good beers and then switch to good ol’ Huber beer out of Wisconsin (which is Bud’s brand BTW) and drink the night away on cheap beer. Who cares what it tasted like, you were piss drunk anyways.
See, I have drunken stories, which also explains my lack of band stories. 😛
hurmmm … maybe a storyline to be had here? where plan 9 smuggles huber into a state that doesn’t have it?
Ha! So the mystery man was Doctor Carlin aft5er all. I guessed right! But I didn’t know he’d made a deal with the devil…
Well, *he’s* not made a deal with the Devil, but merely paid her (she’s gotta keep the furnaces on you know…)
She brokered the deal, so she gets paid. A bit of a stretch, but I had to work her back in as she’s going to make an appearance here soon regarding Bud and a certain frog… oh, I’ve said too much!
😛
Or else you haven’t said enough…
😀
/REM reference
Lol! Is he sure he wasn’t the one who fell asleep while smoking a joint at the old clinic xD? What a long story behind all that!
Well, he was the one that did… he just can’t remember it. 🙂
Nice to see the full page Byron! You rocked it!!
ArrOOoo!
Thanks man! 🙂
That’s pretty epic. Good friend, too. Most people would hear “50k debt” and say “oooh… bummer”.
Well, the effects of the pot have gotten the better of the good Doctor.
🙂
Rawk right the fuck out, Byron. Well-played, my friend.
Oh, and yeah – I love that song, too.
Yeah, that’s a foot-tapper for sure. 🙂
At least you used a song from Elton’s rocker days… ya ever used the song “Fire” by the Crazy World of Arthur Brown?
I think I have… I have to search the archives now as I have over 450 comics posted now and it’s hard to remember what I have or have not used.
In a pinch, there is the epic jam song by the Grateful Dead: Fire on the Mountain. For future reference, if needed. They usually started playing Scarlett Begonias and opened the jam up, then morphed it into Fire on the Mountain; it was such a common combo that most Dead Heads just refer to it as Scarlett → Fire, something that could go on for 15 or 20 or 40 minutes of blazing hot playtime. I recall a particularly intense version they played in an outdoor theater during a hellacious lightening storm with torrential rain in New York back in the early 1980s. Lightening so fast & thick you’d think you could about climb up into the sky and dance on it. The sort of thing that gets burned into your memory for a lifetime.
Anyway … the title is very evocative & might come in handy some day. Like, if Dr. Carlin & Jeff are growing a patch in the mountains somewhere and a campfire sort of takes charge in the middle of the night …. 😉 😀
40 minutes? Good Lord, I could never play a song for 40 minutes. I’d get bored. Explains my sex life too…
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Boy, you tied everything together lovely, Byorn. I can tell that you had this pretty well thought out. You writing is matching your artwork in stupendousness (if I can invent a word). 🙂
Thanks George! My favorite panel is #6 where Dr. Carlin is checking for Bud’s pulse… cracks me up every time.
🙂