WWW: Ripping Off King Arthur #287 -- Just put it out of its Misery Part Seventeen

[Arthur Spitzer]

On Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 2:45:31 PM UTC-7, Arthur Spitzer wrote:
> Tanza and Geraldo discuss the real love triangle that’s destroying the Ripping Off King 
> Arthur webcomic.
> 
> 
> Arthur "Probably some NSFW stuff in this..." Spitzer

Also here's a recap:

Okay, I should have probably done this a long time ago, but here's a Ripping Off King Arthur Recap covering #1-286.  I mean sure you should probably just binge read all of the comics instead reading this thing that will probably just make you shake your head in confusion, but here it goes:

(Warning: SPOILERS!!)


The story begins with a man by the name of Max Ruetra finding himself one day in a padded cell wearing a straightjacket.  Wondering how he got there, a gila monster by the name of Geraldo Gila steps into his cell.  After being checked out of the mental institution the two of them drive in a limo to a place called Webcomiclot.  Webcomiclot is a webcartoonist commune co-owned by Pope Lizardsaurus and his wife Grenadine Luncher.  Pope Lizardsaurus is the wealthiest webcartoonist getting there with a strip that was very inspired the King Arthur mythos.

The gila monster vaguely reminds Max of a character he created when he was younger.  Waking up the next morning, a tragic event has taken place where two children (known as the Cantaloupe Kids) that lived at the commune have been brutally ax murdered.  An investigator called Detective Traci Tracy interviews everyone there.  Det. Tracy has a history with Webcomiclot.  Her husband Rick was a webcartoonist that committed suicide and she blames Webcomiclot for his death.  She warns Max to leave this place while he can.

Max also meets a trenchcoated stranger by the name of Dr. Deadbeat that claims he works for Pope Lizardsaurus in the study of ripoffs.  The Doctor also claims to be from an alternate world and to have traveled various worlds to get here.  He says all of the worlds he traveled were doomed and this one also seems to be doomed and that he can't figure out how to escape it.

Outside of Webcomiclot, a boy called Jesse Cashew digs up a bottle with a severed head of some strange creature.  The head claims to be the Severed Head of Satan and says that his evil twin brother usurped his throne and stuffed his head into this bottle.  He says he'll give one magic wish to Jesse if he'll help him get revenge against his brother.  Jesse agrees and wishes to be the greatest webcartoonist ever.  A time traveler by the name of Ted Time Traveling Webcomic Critic pops up at that point and tries to kill Jesse.    The Severed Head of Satan spots a man by the name of Punk Rokkafeller III and begs him for help.  Punk will only help Jesse if he also gets a wish too.  The Severed Head of Satan gives Punk his wishes and later Jesse winds up in a hospital in a coma.

Grenadine Luncher suspicious of Max Ruetra hires Tanza Late to investigate him.  Tanza Late was a part of the Webcomiclot commune before she was banned for life for various wrongdoings.  If she can find out all of Max's secrets, though Grenadine has promised to lift that ban.  Tanza, however, is working for Punk Rokkafeller whose wish was to be the richest webcartoonist and is creating his own rival conclave of webcartoonists and wants Max to be part of it.

Tanza hits a snag though as Max depressed by his inability to think up a good idea for a webcomic has decided to just stay in bed and never get up.  Both Geraldo and Tanza try to think up ways to get him out of bed and Geraldo shows Tanza a room of another webcartoonist that had the same problem of staying in bed.  Geraldo tells her the story of the Webcartoonist that Stayed in Bed and how he broke his mind trying to come up with the perfect ripoff of King Arthur and could never get out of bed again.  And then the two noticed a strange being chained to wall next to the bed.  The being's name is Rippy Offy and it calls itself a living embodiment of Webcomics that ripoff King Arthur.

The bed that Max is lying on decides to take control of Max's mind and use his body to start a revolution for all beds that will bring a Bedtopia across the world.

Ted the Time Traveling Webcomic Critic shows up in Webcomiclot to reveal to all who really killed the Cantaloupe Kids.  But Det. Tracy unmasks him to reveal that he was actually Prankerham  Lincoln and the Cantaloupe Kids didn't actually ever die that it was all just a hoax.

Max Ruetra's Bed tries to recruit other Webcomiclot beds for its revolution, but is not successful.  It does, however, find the room that has Rippy Offy.  Dr. Deadbeat having had a dream warning him about Rippy Offy escaping tries to stop that from happening, but is prevented from doing so by Geraldo Gila.  Geraldo believes that if Rippy Offy gets free that he too might be able to escape the bounds of the webcomic.

Max's Bed says it'll free Rippy Offy from its chains if it aids it in its quest to overthrow the humans.  Rippy Offy offers various suggestions of how to free it including one where they shove the Webcartoonist Who Stayed in Bed into Rippy Offy.  After that attempt doesn't work, Rippy Offy asks Max's Bed to take off its hat.  Max's Bed does just that and finds that it has traded places with Rippy Offy.  Rippy Offy is now in control of Max's Body and Max's Bed is trapped in the chained body of Rippy Offy.  A furious Max's Bed demands that Rippy Offy honor its promise and free it from its chains.  Rippy Offy says its not sure how to do that, but if it can figure it out will do that after its had loads and loads of fun.  And then leaves the room of a very pissed off Max's Bed.

And Geraldo Gila mysteriously finds himself in a much different world outside the Ripping Off King Arthur webcomic, which turns out to be a paper that Dr. Deadbeat crumples up and throws into a wastebasket.

Meanwhile, Jesse Cashew wakes up from his coma and takes a bus ride with the Severed Head of Satan to Punk Rokkafellers webcartoonist conclave, The Punkrokkthenon.  And Tanza Late  has convinced Weeds Stonerson (actually the FBI agent posing as Weeds Stonderson) and Max Ruetra (possessed by Rippy Offy) to join her for a trip to the Punkrokkthenon.  Dr. Vivan N Tropolis, a scientist working for Punk, is busy with her Mechanical Webcartoonist project and also has a desire to study the Severed Head of Satan speculating that it's some type of alien lifeform.

And while that is all happening the Severed Head of Satan's Evil Twin Brother dies of a drug overdose.  Robbed at its chance of revenge,  The Severed Head does make a deal with Punk to give him one more wish if Punk will get his Evil Twin Brother's corpse and have a surgeon reattach its head to its dead brother's body.

And meanwhile in Webcomiclot, Dr. Deadbeat goes to Rippy Offy's room and discovers Max's Bed chained to the wall.  After losing a game of chance to the Max's Bed, Dr. Deadbeat helps free the Bed by chopping its hands off.  And then he uses those hands to enter into Rippy Offy's body before Max's Bed can destroy him.

Tanza trying to get Max (possessed by Rippy Offy) to sign a contract for Punk's Webcartoonist Conclave winds up having a wild night of passion with him.  Dr. Tropolis finds some problems with one of her proto-Mechanical Webcartoonists, but decides to wait till after The Severed Head of Satan's surgery before dealing with them.  The surgery is interrupted by Det. Tracy who reveals that the surgeon is actually Prankerham Lincoln.  She arrests Punk for the theft of Satan's Evil Twin Brothers corpse and tries to arrest Prankerham for performing surgery without a license, but then Prankerham reveals that the Severed Head of Satan and the body of the evil twin brother were actually robots -- that it was all a hoax and that there's no law again performing surgery on a robot without a license.  Prankerham also reveals that all of the wishes that the Severed Head granted were also hoaxes and that there was never really a Satan or a God.

Dr. Tropolis having avoided getting arrested returns to her lab and finds Tanza and Max (possessed by Rippy Offy) in it.  Max has just put Rippy Offy's derby on Dr. Tropolis's computer causing the proto-Mechanical Author, Rippy Offy, and Max Ruetra to all merge together.

And then we skip 10 years into the future from 2014 to 2024.  The Mechanical Webcartoonist has changed the world to reflect Dr. Tropolis's utopia.  While most of the world is a Utopia where all the peoples needs are fulfilled there is a small section called the Shrugged Lands where people who disagree with Dr. Tropolis's vision are sent to live however they choose to live.  A nuclear bomb goes off in one of the shrugged lands killing the Cantaloupe Kids and their family.  Dr. Tropolis has a dream where she is visited by the kid's deceased Mom.

Dr. Deadbeat finds himself going deeper and deeper into various Rippy Offy type beings that are contained in the Rippy Offy Body.  As the time grows, he seems to lose more and more of his humanity.  Eventually, his severed head attached to a mechanical spider type body shows up in Smurf ripoff called the Chainsawrfs.  One of these Chainsawrfs called Learny is being lynched for being a drag based on all the times he tried to convince his fellow Chainsawrfs to not cut down all the trees in the forest and they just couldn't take it anymore.  Dr. Deadbeat mows down all of the Chainsawrfs except for Learny who he accidentally frees by blasting the rope over Learny's neck.  Before he can kill Learny (okay, he probably wasn't planning on killing Learny), the two of them find themselves in a void.  A crack in the void leads them to another dimension where a man named Cleeve Cleaver is trapped in a webcomic where he gets a phone call and then blows his brain away with a gun for some different tasteless gag every time that feels phones in.  Their appearance though seems to disrupt the webcomic's formula.

Before they can figure a way out of the webcomic, they see a gigantic gila monster hand holding them like a piece of paper that turns out to be Geraldo Gila.  Geraldo uses a power he possesses to send them into his universe.  And then he explains to them that this webcomic they exist on is ending unless they can figure a way to stop that from happening.

Dr. Tropolis wakes up from her dream in 2024 and is puzzled to find herself in the year 2018.  She finds out that Rippy Offy got bored of her Utopian vision and has rewritten a number of things.  Punk Rokkafeller instead of being an exile in the Shrugged Lands is now President.

Grenadine Lunch oblivious to all of the changes made in reality finds a crater where Webcomiclot once was.  Weeds Stonerson and the FBI Agent Posing as Weeds Stonerson have been kidnapped by the Four Immortal Mayflies (controlling Big Foot's corpse) so they can have their minds swapped.  The Four Immortal Mayflies have also hired Tanza Late and Detective Traci Tracy to steal Webcomiclot, which they did using a shrink ray gun that the Immortal Mayflies made.

Jesse Cashew in 2024 is lying next to his girlfriend thinking about this idea of his for his next webcomic.  An idea about what if he never actually found the Severed Head of Satan and instead getting that wish to become the Greatest Webcartoonist Ever.  As he is thinking about this everything starts to dissolve.  The Severed Head of Satan appears and tells him that this idea is actually the reality.  Being the Greatest Webcartoonist Ever was the dream and he's about to wake up from it.  Waking up from this dream, he finds himself as a forty years old man that has never had any success as a webcartoonist.  He wonders about the dream and then gets the idea to go back to his old home and see if he can find the Severed Head of Satan.  There might be a worthwhile story there.

Max Ruetra's Bed still trapped within Rippy Offy's body sits in a bar feeling pity for itself regretting that its overthrowing of all humans never happened and that it was too late to make it happen since it was 2024.  The bartender, Tippy O'Tipp (the bartender with useful tips for webcartoonists), points out that the year is actually 2019.  This totally energizes Max Ruetra's Bed.  It does still have the time to overthrow all humans, get revenge against all of its enemies, and create a Bedtopia.

Max Ruetra's Bed finds it way into Geraldo Gila's little universe and throws a chainsaw into Dr. Deadbeat's head killing him.  Geraldo uses his powers to freeze Max Ruetra's Bed in time.

Grenadine Luncher and a SWAT team storm Tanza and Det. Tracy's secret base.  Tanza tries to convince Det. Tracy to use their transport device to flee, but Det. Tracy chooses not to that.  Tanza goes through the transport thingee and sets a timer for it to explode.  She then finds herself in Geraldo's little universe.

Dr. Tropolis convinces Rippy Off to allow her to talk to the Mechanical Webcartoonist.  She enters into Rippy Offy and after long number of steps she reaches the Mechanical Webcartoonist's domain.  There the Mechanical Webcartoonist offers her the chance to remake the world back into a Utopia, but only if she pushes a button which will destroy the little universe where Geraldo Gila and the rest are located wiping them out.


Arthur "Recapping.." Spitzer