Nerd By Northwest

February 2nd, 2018

Cartoonist’s Commentary:

This story arc was something I wanted to do ever since I started this webcomic, as Half-Life was and still is one of my favorite games of all time. This is also the point where I committed myself to doing ALL subsequent webcomics in color, instead of just on special occasions like I did previously.

Ash’s comment in the first panel is poking fun at the role of the game’s protaganist, Gordon Freeman, who’s supposed to be a Physics PhD and yet his work tasks in the game’s beginning are those of a low-level equipment operator. Of course the way US government contracts and projects work, having a PhD assigned to the role of button-pusher would not be that unusual given the sometimes dysfunctional and excessively bureaucratic working environment. Heaven knows a couple of my jobs in that industry had me feeling more like tech support than an engineer… 😒