Last-Ditch Page 53
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Good News for People Who Like Bad News
01-18-24
Dear False Positive Readers,
This is Ashley Walton, Mike’s sister and editor of False Positive. I have really terrible, awful news and a tiny bit of good news.
You might have noticed it’s been a couple years since we’ve posted anything on this website. Well, brace yourself for the saddest update I’ll ever share.
It’s full of stars!
That was a surprisingly complex and costly move.
OK, OK, looks good . . . . . At what point does the growing black hole present a threat to the man holding the tail?
I’m more concened of the fact, that just a tail can be dangerous by itself, if that’s the tail of shapeshifting monstrocity.
My thoughts exactly
Bugger…
Clever – how many other past stories are you going to weave into this?! 😀
Gotta say, I did not expect “Constriction” to connect to the grand plot. There’s not many unconnected threads left.
Well, to be fair, it *was* sort of hinted in the very beginning of this story. The woman might not be recognizable (missing the red hair and all), but the bedroom shown during the “visit” of the astronaut is the same one as in Constriction. (I have to admit, I idn’t realize that until re-reading the story this morning.) The hint was always there, right under our nose. Well played Mike, well played indeed.
Thats not just constriction, but detained as well. both appear to be directly linked to this page, especially since the beastie in detained also released its physical form to become a “wolf spirit”…
Way to throw an entire universe under the bus!
Also, her hair isn’t orange anymore? I guess this is not her story after all…
the question is whether the black hole was going to swallow the earth and the mark on his great-grandmother was to anchor coyote’s final destination. Or did the mark trigger the black hole.
The mark triggered the black hole. Spaceman apologized to her when he drew the mark at the beginning of the story.
There goes the neighborhood
So we’ve tied in the Constriction storyline as well now. This is pretty awesome. Although i think it’s a little selfish to sacrifice an alternate earth in order to save your own.
How many universes would clever hound have consumed the old fashioned way had he not been consumed by a singularity? What a fitting end. How very singular.
we just gonna call him the clever hound now? so he died and he might have become this shapeshifting spirit but…it’s a god not just a spirit. didnt we just call him wayfarer for his first appereance?
Hmmm.
If you know the catastrophe happened or is going to happen anyway, at least it may have some use…
I owe some money to this men… Hmmm…
Clive Barker employed a similar plot device in his great book, Imagica, using the first nuclear test at White Sands to destroy a horrific pandimensional monstrosity, much like the Wayfarer.
Wait, what?! I’ve read Imagica MANY times, and I have no memory of that whatsoever…!
My bad. It was The Great and Secret Show.
OMG YES! I’d completely forgotten that bit! 😀
Jim Butcher had a singularly unpleasant nemesis of Harry Dresden do the same thing.
Brilliant. They didn’t beat him directly….they employed a natural phenomena to beat him. Excellent, and a lovely unexpected tie-in.
just…. wow. compared this to constriction storyline. the short dialog right before the black hole emerges (‘did you see that?’ – ‘what?’) took place there too, but without actually revealing what the nurse referred too. and just today, we get to see the reason. but that leaves one question:
DID YOU PLAN LAST DITCH SINCE 5 YEARS????
Ha! Called it early on, but for some reason my comment never showed up. Either my connection timed-out when I posted it or maybe it was moderated? Whatever, excellent story as usual! 😀
ha! I called it way later and the same thing happened =) (last page) soooo I think big Mike was keeping it a mistery
Hooray! We saved the planet by utterly destroying it! We win! I guess the goal here wasn’t to save the planet, but to defeat their enemy. I do like how the different stories have been brought together so nicely, but the morality of their actions continues to elude me. Are they just determined to defeat their enemy for their own ends, or is that enemy so terrible that a world must die for the “greater good?” Either way (or some other way), a wonderful, creepy, epic. I look forward to the denouement, and which questions will be answered, and which will never be.
Amazing. This comic. This trick. I have no words.
It really is an alternate timeline: the art for Constriction was done by Daniel Govar. 😀
I, too, did not expect this.
Mike you’d damn well better publish FP in a complete hardcover graphic novel format so you can take all of my money. Seriously, I love you right now. ❤
for real big mike! I’ve said it before but you gotta get a book made.
I’m feeling like trying to get more people into FalPo but dang, better wait till this story is done or it’d ruin the whole thing :p
Nutronium Alchemy!
AHHHH!
Didn’t see that one coming. Well done, sir.
Big Mike – I like the hospital name and the little details that you’re always putting in the story. Were you thinking of a specific version of the demon?
Just noticed the design on the wall in the background (panel 6 in this comic). I feel unobservant, since I have had that design tattooed on my finger for many years – it’s part of a coyote-mythology related symbol I ran across a long time ago (from a dubious source, but dubious sources are fine for dubious characters). I am wondering if there is any significance to its presence in a story about a related character.
This whole comic, Last Ditch, smacks of an end game. Like all things here will be wrapped up by the last panel.
Fitting title, indeed. A black hole is certainly the last ditch you could ever fall into.
Long time reader, first time poster… The symbolism in these stories are amazing and how they tie in are incredible, Big Mike you’re a genius…
Here is some food for thought on the hospital name:
http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Paimon
And thus we see yet another variant of the old roleplaying game rule of thumb: “You can’t dodge falling damage.”
I’m kinda wondering how long he can hold onto that tail when the rest of the coyote is getting dragged into a black hole. The shape-shifting monstrosity (whom I think started out as that guy in the Concoction story) has likely been dragged into eternity.
“Wonder Twin powers, activate!”
“Form of…tentacled monster!”
“Shape of…spaghetti!”
So they sacrificed one world for another. What a bunch of assholes.