It’s just too perfect — you’ll see the relevance by the time you get to the bottom of the post, promise — and it’s a tenet of this page that cartoonists get paid, particularly when the cartoonist has a link right next to the cartoon that tells you exactly how to pay them. In case you were wondering, if I were using the cartoon to talk about the cartoonist’s work, that would be Fair Use, but I’m not, so it’s only right to pony up the £5.

I read two comic updates today that couldn’t be more different, but somehow … somehow they touch on the same theme. Small creatures confronting very large creatures — large enough and advanced enough to be gods in comparison to the small. Two comics that are approaching the end of their respective runs, both of which are exploring the nature of the reality of creation (Creation?), and one’s place within the company of great powers.

On the one hand, today’s page of Kill Six Billion Demons starts what will possibly be the Last War There Ever Is, as the Gods of the Seven-Part World vie and Alison, a human thrown into their midst, begins to question (not for the first time, but maybe the last) what she thought she knew of her universe¹. She’s been thrown into a world in turmoil, manipulated at every turn by innumerable factions, with the end of everything crashing towards her and a pivotal role to play that nobody’s quite explained to her.

On the other hand (and don’t laugh), today’s pages of BACK starts what will possibly be the last struggle there ever will be between an unnamed (and until now, unseen) human and a bug. Judging from the last few pages, it’s looking like this bug is actually Agnes, a cowgirl that has been in a communion with the God of this very singular world (a world that exists entirely on the God’s body), and she’s questioning (not for the first time, but maybe the last) what she thought she knew of her universe². She’s been thrown into a world in turmoil, manipulated at every turn by innumerable factions, with the end of everything crashing towards her and pivotal role to play that nobody’s quite explained to her.

You could hardly have two more different comics (BACK being played mostly for laughs, KSBD being played for awesome in the original sense of inspiring awe, the slack-jawed disbelief that what you’re seeing is actually happening), two more disparate vehicles for exploring the metaphysical and eschatological, but that’s comics for you. And the thing is, they’re both succeeding at that exploration wildly, as a pair of nobody-asked-them-if-they-wanted-to-be heroines learn about the prisons the world creates, the ones we create for ourselves, and the costs of tearing them down.

Anyway, I read the latest pages of each today, and the parallels just wouldn’t stop asserting themselves. If you’re not familiar with one or the other, now would be a decent time to check them out and let me know if what I’m seeing is actually a thing, or if I’m just chasing non-existent connections.

Spam of the day:

Help me please. The coronavirus left without money. Send some bitcoin money.

I am all broken up to hear that the coronavirus left without money, but I am not sending you bitcoin so the coronavirus can have money. That’s just stupid.

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¹ There’s more than one, after all. 777,777 to be exact.

² Which, in this case, appears to be the body of a singular enormous humanoid; Agnes and all the other characters have been more or less human, but with very spindly limbs and sometimes too many of them, so it appears they were bugs all along. I’m not sure if KC Green (who write BACK and drew today’s update) had let Anthony Clark (who’s drawn the previous 299 updates and whose aesthetic is all over the character designs) in on this twist, but the buggish nature of pretty much all the characters seems to suggest he did.