268: Choices: Part 5

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Choices: Part 5

Title text: I wonder what percentage of not-obviously-busy people on the street would say yes to kite-flying with a stranger. This looks like a job for Science!

Explanation

In the final part of Choices, Megan is back to real life, and has forgotten about her trip, as afterlife-Megan said. However, she has an epiphany, and in the spirit of what she told her, she talks to the stranger on the street. The stranger is likely Cueball who studied the physics problem she encountered from part 2, as they both use a similar backpack. The urge to talk to strangers in awkward situations has been touched on in 235: Kite and can also be used when you are already flying a kite (see 1614: Kites.)

Notably, at the point in the comic where Megan has her epiphany, the panel border is absent. This brief disappearance of the boundary layer could symbolize Megan partially remembering the conversation she had with herself in the space 'outside the theater', her mind briefly making that outside connection before returning to her life with her other self's hints in mind.

The title text suggests a weird sociological investigation. The capital "S" in "Science" suggests a personification.

This series was released on five consecutive days (Monday to Friday) and not over the usual schedule of three comics a week. These are all the comics in Choices series:

• 264: Choices: Part 1
• 265: Choices: Part 2
• 266: Choices: Part 3
• 267: Choices: Part 4
• 268: Choices: Part 5

Transcript

[Megan is walking towards the right of the panel.]

[Cueball wearing a backpack is walking towards the left of the panel.]

[They walk past each other.]

[Megan has a sudden thought, in a drawing without a frame between two panels.]

[Megan turns, lifts her arm, and calls out to Cueball, who then turn towards her.]

Megan: Hi.

Cueball: Uh, hi.

[Only Megan is shown.]

Megan: Sorry if this is weird, but

Megan: Do you like flying kites?

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Discussion

I think it's related to 235: Kite. There is kite, Megan, Cueball - but they didn't say "hi". 108.162.231.55 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I'd agree here. It's nice to have pleasant realisations. Ribbit it's Toad! (talk) 05:44, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this should be taken as something that happens in direct chronological relation with the previous "Megan travels to another universe" series; it's not apparently related. I see no reason to treat these cartoons as if they follow any particular order or time frame, except when it's obvious. In fact, until I came here and started reading the explanations, I never even thought of them as particular "characters" with names, just representations of certain types of people. It wasn't long, but I hadn't even associated Black Hat with being an "asshole" in particular. I thought it was just a way of giving the series some texture. In any case, he's the only one that shows a real definite set to his personality, and he could be representative of a certain type of person. The others are less so, but I don't think they should be viewed as sequential characters in a storyline; they're more like people in The Far Side, where they usually look very much alike, but there is no actual relation between the people shown in on frame and the next. Not to say giving them names doesn't make explaining easier, but I wouldn't take it any further than that. Personally, anyway. Unless Randall specifically said they were intended to be specific characters at some point... 108.162.218.118 06:19, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Um, you've seen the strip title? It's labeled as part of the series, if it wasn't enough to be directly after and contain an identical character doing something in line with the previous strip's suggestions. 141.101.98.40 17:20, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Not only that, but she's doing exactly what she told herself to do: Talking to a random person about a random thing. — Kazvorpal (talk) 19:23, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Could the Cueball dude with the backpack possibly be the same as the one doing math from Choices part 2? 162.158.123.115 21:24, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Good catch! I think he is! Do you want to add to the explanation yourself? (P.S.: It is common/best practice to add any new discussion points at the bottom of the page. I have moved this to the bottom.) --Lupo (talk) 06:21, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I think the capital 'S' in science doesn't necessarily suggest personification, just like capitalizing "Truth" doesn't.