Charlotte Nidd – Arika’s mother, and the boss of Ghost World – has returned to the pages of Badnix for the first time in, like, a year! And she comes bearing callbacks to some older strips. Let’s take a walk down memory lane, shall we?
- When Rog’s team was just getting off the ground, Charlotte used her influence to help stifle dissent from the other bosses.
- She then twisted Rog’s (proverbial) arm to get him to hire Arika, explaining in vague terms that the Badnix would be under her protection.
- Not too long after that, some previously unexplained mysterious lights bailed out Rog and Arika when the latter was rappin’ on death’s door. Bet you thought that was just a random sight gag, huh? NOPE! Each and every punchline and one-off joke from a year ago might yet turn out to be a plot point! REMAIN EVER VIGILANT!
…in all seriousness, it might seem like that reference is coming out of left field, but I did know exactly what those lights were when I threw them in the strip! I’ve been waiting for ages to make that connection. Originally, ethereal lights and other ghostly aid were supposed to bail Arika & co. out of trouble in the Cave World & Bug Mafia story arcs, but those bits felt distracting and I wound up cutting them. And then World 2 ended up running, like, twice as long as expected, so this callback ended up being way more obscure than intended. Oops.
Well, hey, at least I’m not a DC/Marvel comics writer. Those guys whip out references to stuff that happened ~50 years ago without breaking a sweat.
Excelsior!
– CC
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