Some Body Horror for You

[q99]

Source: Legorobotcomics, most of which are nothing like this

Comments

[fungo_squiggly]

But the monster that stole his cat looked different than his own monster-body does?

I read it as the guy (inadvertently) perpetuating the cycle of more surreal abductions resulting in monsterism. He stole some other guy's cat, just as his own cat was stolen from him in the beginning... the look on his face in the last panel shows that the irony of it all isn't lost on him.

[q99]

No, that's him, it's got the eye on the side of the torso and the chitinous plates over muscle.

Oops! I just realized I left off the last comic...

[nezchan]

The thing is, there's no mention that I can see of any time shenanigans, so how does he close a loop like that?

Seems a bit disappointing if that's the actual ending, since it leaves the whole setup of the underground world unexplored.

[q99]

Time probably works differently there.

We don't know why it's there or how it works or where the bugs came from, and I think that's intentional.

[nezchan]

Hmmm, there's nothing in the story to base that "probably" on, though. You shouldn't assume a reader will make that jump in logic.

What would have improved it would be some sort of reference to time (not necessarily travelling), and an establishing shot to show it was the same house in both scenes.

[q99]

I think that's hurt the surprise a bit though.

You look and you see it's the exact same thing, down to the blood on the collar and the person in the bathtub and the thing just outside the door- he is the monster he was so terrified of.

[fungo_squiggly]

But in the panel where the first monster appears, the eye is on the wrong side of the torso... it looks like there's a right arm attached to it, while the guy has the eye on his left side at the end.

Plus the first monster has some additional tentacles and other protrusions that the guy doesn't possess. But then again, the art doesn't seem to be especially consistent, given that the guy originally had an eye growing out of his arm that vanishes halfway through the story.

Whatever the case, I really liked this story. It reminds me of Lovecraft at his most surreal.

[q99]

Hm, true, there's some inconsistency, but it's closer to him than any of the other monsters.