I haven’t had a chance to do many of these because most time that I’ve been able to spend on the comic has had to be focused on actually making the comic, so things like commentary and links and such have sort of fallen by the wayside. But I did want to address something I saw in the comments about this story line and that is the nature of the “Macaroni Incident” that we’re seeing thanks to this current episode. I’ve always intended the Macaroni to be a ship, what kind and how the Incident played out wasn’t fully fleshed out until I wrote this episode, but it was always in reference to something that happened to another ship. This reference is two fold, the first being a direct reference to the “noodle incident” trope, the second being to one of the biggest influences to the comic. In addition to all the Star Wars and Star Trek ideas that went into building this comic, one of my major influences was the 1996 naval comedy Down Periscope, much of Bob’s personality comes from Kelsey Grammar’s Tom Dodge character and both Marty and Lt. Pascal owe their names to Rob Schneider’s character Marty Pascal from that same movie, as do some of the aspects of their personalities, and of course the rag tag bunch of misfits being in truth an incredibly competent bunch of misfits. The reference to the movie is that Tom Dodge got demoted due to the “Murmansk Brushing Incident”, and so of course Bob getting stuck with the Muffin would play out in a very similar fashion.
It’s not court martial, because it seems this project was too secret to be allowd to go official. Still blame needs to assigned and careers ”adjusted”.
Wow, I had long forgotten about ‘Down Periscope’. For some reason ‘Pentagon Wars’ is always fresh in my mind.
It’s funny, because I’d been suspecting until now that this episode was originally inspired by TNG’s “The Pegasus”, and today’s comic seemed to clench that for me – until I read the commentary.
I had never heard of that film before (I assume it’s not that popular in my part of the world). Thanks for sharing those behind the scenes facts, Dr. Legostar!
And, yes, like many others I never thought of “Macaroni” referring to a ship, I also imagined it was something that had happened in a mess hall. I guess the reason is just that it takes some more strips into the comic to actually realize that all Alliance ships are named after foods. When reading the first comics I thought only the Muffin had a name of that kind. So, the thought of the Macaroni incident referring to actual food just stuck in people’s heads.
Ah – Down Periscope – probably my favourite Kelsey Grammar film! I should have realised the connections!
I remember the reveal about the inspiration for Marty and Lt. Pascal’s names in that contest way back when, and wondering how I ever missed that, as Down Periscope is one of my favorite “so dumb it’s brilliant” comedies. It’s great that you’ve kept that spirit alive and well in the comics all these years (although I must say that your comic is way more brilliant than dumb…).