Evil Jim: Week Fifty-Six
04-13-04 through 04-16-04
Artist's Commentary:
158
Now that I think about it, this reminds me of the WWE Judgment Day 2004 Pay-Per-View Matt and Pat showed me months after I made this strip. Eddie Guirerro gets his head busted wide open by Bradshaw and bleeds pints all over the ring. Had I known more about wrestling when I drew this, I probably would have included a Spanish announcer table.
Matt was a little disappointed that CC never got to have a DDR fight with EJ during the DDE arc last fall. So I made his wish come true here. And in living color, too. This strip was a real pain to make. The Winamp modifications alone took two hours. The removal of CC's glasses was an occurance I didn't take lightly. CC NEVER takes off those glasses, so I talked with Matt to make sure I was staying within the realm of his character in that regard. The character has a cross-shaped tatoo on his left eye, which is usually covered by the glasses. That tatoo apparently surprised a few people for some reason.
Pat's thoughts on this strip: "Hehe. Mix Master Penguin." That's the best picture of Evil Peguin I think I will ever draw.
Matt's thoughts on this strip: "CC looks scary without his glasses on."
Yes, he's licking the blood off his face. I guaruntee you that is the grossest thing you will ever see EJ do.
If you're not familiar with DDR, the punchline to this strip is that Maxx Unlimited is not "an easy one."
159
In my endeavor to make CC a protagonist, I ended up going too far and turned him into a really bad guy. Who's apparently killed people. Matt expressed his concerns over where I was taking his character. We spent some time developing a game plan to get him back on track, which turned into EJ423.
I stole that DDR screengrab from the internet and tweaked it to make it look like we had played 39 songs and racked up an impossible combo score. The lyrics are from my favorite DDR song, "Hysteria." Oddly appropriate lyrics, wouldn't you say?
160
There is no "Megadeath Survivor." There is no 12-foot difficulty. Though, if there was, no human being would be able to beat it without suffering major heart damage.
Dunno if you can tell, but that's a light grid in the next-to-last panel. Cuz we're looking up at the ceiling.
161
CC was actually referring to EP when he said "shift my attention to more active sinners." He wasn't really in league with EP after all! Maybe he's not as bad as you might think? Okay, well, his character alignment got resolved some time later.
I've been itching for an excuse to bring back Jon's Never-Ending Beef Stick.
Killing Betsy was the hardest decision I ever made during the entire two-year run of the series. I realized that serious consequences needed to occur to spur the story onward. As we'll see in the next strip, Jim hardly bats an eye about her sacrifice, making his character type quite clear. Also, we realize EP is very, VERY evil for what he did. Breaking the news to real-life Betsy, who I hadn't seen in over a year because she transferred out of Ithaca, was also difficult. But she was okay with it. Weren't you, Besty? :-( To most of the readers, this was the most shocking EJ strip because of what happens. I can't say I didn't expect that, and it was very sadistic of me, but it seemed an appropriate thing to do considering the direction this series was going at the time...which was down the proverbial toilet.
I had neglected to draw a reaction shot of EP reacting to Jon's arrival. So I re-used panel 2 and added a gun. A bad gun.