Ink Pen by Phil Dunlap for January 01, 2011

Maybe he should try a can of Moxie…

Man, looking up the references, has the art style changed or WHAT? It’s like a completely different artist…

Only one of the alias references matches?? First appearance reference does.

jterran, glad to know I’m not the only one that looked. try http://www.gocomics.com/inkpen/2007/06/07/ for Scrappy Lord and http://www.gocomics.com/inkpen/2009/08/22/ for Scrap Iron. However, http://www.gocomics.com/inkpen/2006/12/27/ is right for Scrappy Lass. Since I’ve gone this far,here’s the first shot: http://www.gocomics.com/inkpen/2005/11/21/ No signs of OCD here, eh?

Scrappy Lad’s Origin Story:

You must know, then, that the above-named youth whenever he was at leisure (which was mostly all the year round) gave himself up to reading comic books with such ardour and avidity that he almost entirely neglected the pursuit of his field-sports, and even his physical sustenance; and to such a pitch did his eagerness and infatuation go that he sold many candy bars which were intended as charitable fund-raisers to buy comic books to read, and brought home as many of them as he could get. But of all there were none he liked so well as those of the famous Super Heroes, for their lucidity of style and complicated conceits were as pearls in his sight. Over conceits of this sort the poor youth lost his wits, and used to lie awake striving to understand them and worm the meaning out of them; what Aristotle himself could not have made out or extracted had he come to life again for that special purpose. Many an argument did he have with the proprietor of his favorite comic book store (a learned man, and a graduate of the “Draw Skippy!” Correspondnce School of Cartoon Arts) as to which would win in a fight, Superman or Batman. Master Nicholas, from the barber shop next door, however, used to say that neither of them came up to the Iron Man, and that if there was any that could compare with him it was Captain America, because he had a spirit that was equal to every occasion, and was no finikin alien, nor lachrymose like the Caped Crusader, while in the matter of indomitable spirit he was not a whit behind him. In short, he became so absorbed in his comic books that he spent his nights from sunset to sunrise, and his days from dawn to dark, poring over them; and what with little sleep and much reading his brains dried up and he lost his wits.

His fancy grew full of what he used to read about in his books, enhantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, wooings, loves, agonies, and all sorts of impossible nonsense; and it so possessed his mind that the whole fabric of invention and fancy he read of was true, that to him no history in the world had more reality in it. He used to say Spider-Man was a very good hero, but that he was not to be compared with Green Lantern who with one thought manifested a functioning cyclotron from his Power Ring. He approved highly of the Incredible Hulk, because, although of the Gamma breed which is always arrogant and ill-conditioned, he alone was fond of kittens and puppies. But above all he admired Captain Victorious, especially when he saw him sallying forth from his barstool and foiling bank robberies as if by accident, and when at Dynaman’s Testimonial Supper he stole the last pork chop which, as his history says, was the meatiest and tenderest of them all. To have a bout of kicking at that traitor of a Dr. Negato he would have given his mint-condition Golden Age Flash fully-poseable action figure, and his baby sister into the bargain.

In short, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest notion that ever madman in this world hit upon, and that was that he fancied it was right and requisite, as well for the support of his own honour as for the service of his City, that he should make a sidekick of himself, roaming the world over in full costume and mask in quest of adventures, and putting in practice himself all that he had read of as being the usual practices of super-heroes; righting every kind of wrong, and exposing himself to peril and danger from which, in the issue, he was to reap eternal renown and fame. Already the poor boy saw himself given the Keys to the City by a Grateful Populace; and so, led away by the intense enjoyment he found in these pleasant fancies, he set himself forthwith to put his scheme into execution.

No, wait, I’m mixing it up with Don Quixote de La Mancha’s origin story. Scrappy Lad simply found some yellow pajamas in a dumpster one day, and one thing led to another…

Well played, fritzoid!