Comic #981: Yakety Yak (Patreon)

This one is kind of a big swing. I almost didn’t go for it. It’s one of those things where I really like it, but I’m not sure if any other human is on board with how weird it is. First of all, it’s weird. Cosmic horror insanity vibes. Secondly, it involves a little knowledge of the transmog yak mount, and the grummels that ride it. I have no idea how many people know about the grummels, care about the grummels, so there’s that. And thirdly, it’s a part 3, so a lot of readers might go into it blind and think, “what the hell is this?”

Anyway, for those that don’t know, there are two grummels that ride the repair/transmog Yak mount that many people use. Their names are Cousin Slowhands and Mystic Birdhat. In this little series, Marda took Cousin Slowhands’ spot on the yak. He famously has a list of annoying dialogue quips that he speaks over and over. Most notably, “Anything for a friend of the grummels, like you” and “Luckydoos and loots!” The idea here being that he spent too much time in the void and had half his brain eaten, and now so has Marda. Dark enough?

I had a couple people on Patreon and on Reddit remind me that grummels dismount from the Yak when you dismiss it, and that made me really want to do a grummel comic. I wasn’t sure exactly where it was going or how to start it at first. I thought about having Marda in the void writing in a journal, but it had too much exposition about how she got there, and not enough grummel. I also had an early version involving Marda trying to desperately seek help from a Grummel on a neighboring mount, but it went nowhere. Why wouldn’t she just dismount?

I knew I wanted the grummels to speak and be weird and funny. I had to look online to find Grummel dialogue to get an idea of how to make Mystic Birdhat speak. One thing I did notice is how they refer to the Yak as simply, “Yak”, rather than “the Yak”. That was a good start, and then I mixed that with a little bit of Yoda backwards talk and the rest is what you see in the comic.

I also made a last minute change to the dialogue in panel 2 that I think made a big difference. At the end of the dialogue in that panel, he originally said: “But never again!” instead of “Half a mind now!” I know it’s not much, but with that little change I made it very clear that the void changed him. It makes the final panel much stronger.

I’ve always been really into cosmic horror. Something about it really creeps me out and fascinates me at the same time. One of my favorite’s is a short story by Stephen King called “The Jaunt”. The premise is very similar to the comic. It’s basically about the idea of spending nearly endless time trapped in your thoughts and what that would do to your sanity. If you read the story, especially the last line, you’ll see my inspiration for the final panel.

Anyway, I think this is the end of this little mini arc. I just don’t see where else it could go. Maybe I’ll bring the grummels back though. They were fun.