It’s Robot Unicorn all over again
July 19, 2016
6:38 am
I just think the idea that he tells people his name is “Rochard” if he wants to make it sound unnecessarily formal
Manly Guys Doing Manly Things
Updated Mondays or whenever I feel like it
I would have this attitude too if my workplace was a gym
(Also I caught the comic right when it was posted, I feel special!)
you ARE special! I had this privilege once, it was great!
PokeGo isn’t still out in my country.
On the brief ‘just starting, servers all over’ stuff at launch, I saw it… there’s a gym just across the street from my workplace.
THAT PLACE’S GONNA BE MINE.
WHAT ARE YE DOING IN MY SWAMP
This is amazing. This is amazing cos it’s Rock. Cos he’s so chill and usually low-key manly and then THIS.
This is great
I’m remembering the episode of King of the Hill where Hank became addicted to video games . . .
You have to defeat him Jarred.
It’s cause you don’t mess with someone’s gym!
Commander can be highly competitive under the right circumstances – like with Canada Guy.
Well Canada Guy is not normal.
I’ve been thinking this for a while now, and I’m not sure anyone else has caught it yet…
The reason the Commander can’t stand Canada Guy is that Canada Guy is his ‘player two’ color-swap.
Seriously. *Look* at the two of them.
Truly, CeolaSquid’s genius knows no bounds. :)
Fairly sure it’s an open secret and a running gag. I believe Coelasquid has even mentioned the uncanny similarity when commenting on one of her uncolored pages. I think it was on her Tumblr.
Still trying to figure out exactly how and why they’re doppelgangers from different countries. Some are thinking he’s another supersoldier that just happens to share a bunch of the same spliced genes as Commander, others think he’s an alternate universe/timeline version of him. Some think Canada Guy was supposed to be his replacement after he wrangled a retirement out of the future military. Perhaps Canada has its own super-soldier program and their spies stole Commander’s blueprints. Or, it’s like what you’re thinking.
Much like with X-files, it’s funnier when left unexplained. But have fun coming up with theories and guesses anyway. I know I am.
Well, if Canada Guy is from our time, and the Commander is from the Space-Future, maybe Canada Guy was the genetic template the Commander was loosely based off of.
Rochard Lobster? :P
Well, nice to see Commander’s picked up Pokemon Go too. If only to make that point. :P
i think its rock hard lobster
It’s “Rochard” like “rick” is short for “Richard”.
Are the ceiling tiles Ceramic, Lino, or just sort of generic school/office style panel roofing? I NEED TO KNOW!!!!!!!
Jk. Good comic though. Keep it up!
They look like regular drop ceiling tiles, some of which are yellowed with age, with others that are relatively new and fresh on account of undirected use of flight, pyrokinesis, or other “outdoors” sorts of powers.
I guess there are light fixings among the ceiling tiles. There is a pattern. ^^
I love the idea of Commander telling people to watch it with their outside powers, like telling a little kid to use their inside voice.
The guys here would need to be reminded frequently.
This… makes a surprising amount of sense.
So, commander Rochard Lobster Badass?
I, too, thought it was to be pronounced as “Rock Hard Lobster”.
If you can fight in it, Rock will DOMINATE in it! Bah god!
The ability to time travel probably doesn’t hurt, though I can’t confirm if he did that obviously
That’d clearly be cheating and dude isn’t a cheater.
Well he could’ve gone back to the launch day in order to not miss out on the grinding.
Or he just MANLY’d his way through 24/7 regime.
The commander’s ethics depends on how petty he can be at the moment. And at the moment, he’s being VERY petty.
He wouldn’t be a NEW guy if he went back to launch. He might have played for months and went back to now though.
Wait I that literally his house? Or his ‘house’? o_O
He means it metaphorically, not literally. You notice Jared is talking about a new guy dominating the area, which infers a familiarity with the zone. Rock has acquired the game and is administering a layer of pwnage in an assertive manly fashion.
Also, who the hell has a tiled ceiling in their house?
*raises hand*
Username checks out?
I think this one is a direct follow up to the previous comment, in which Jared proclaims himself the boss because he was top tier in the gym at the office. Clearly the Commander couldn’t let that stand, and this happened.
By comment, I meant comic.
Yeah I had the same feeling. This kind of thing happens when you challenge the commander on his own turf I guess.
Given that Pokemon Gyms are more closely related to dojos than exercise gyms like in the western culture, saying “house” could mean “dojo”. It’s probably meant figuratively, though. When someone says “This is my house” it means they’re in charge around there (unless it’s literally their house, but I’m pretty sure it was stated that the gym is at the office).
Rochard, or Roc Hard? :P
Kelly, we need verification if that was an intentional joke on your part or just a happy coincidence.
Mostly a coincidence, I was using it like how “Rick” is short for “Richard”.
But, but, “Dick” is short for Richard o.o
So is Rick, just like Will and Bill are both short for William
Which would be unfortunate if the guy’s last name was “Cranium.”
Not to mention, you know the name ‘RockLobster’ had to of been taken within the first twenty minutes of the game release.
Time travel says it wasn’t.
Time travel says it was, within the first twenty seconds.
First thing I thought after reading it :D
…As the philosopher once said: “I hope you know this means war.”
I thought it was Bugs Bunny who said that…
Bugs Bunny is a philosopher, so yes, that is correct.
Precisely.
Except Groucho Marx said it first.
Huh. I did not know that. The original line STILL works, though. :)
Except you misquoted it. It’s “Of course you realize, this means war”
You shouldn’t have to challenge the commander. Now he’s got to remind you that he is the boss
This has to be the best comment on this page, hands down.
The real question is, what team is he on? Can we assume Valor?
Jared’s an Instinct type of guy, so I’d assume so.
Oh, totally, Valor. Work hard to level up.
That, and the team color is red.
The clear answer is Valor. You work hard to reach the top and bring out your own true potential. This is what he is doing every day! Helping others to get back into society and function.
Clearly we need to send him some Valor leathers.
Rock Hard Lobster? That’s great! XD
I wonder if he ever gets confused with the main character from Rochard…
I was wondering if anyone else ever played that game…
Commander #*72+B52 – Instinct, Mystic, or Valor?
That shorthand. *slow clap*
#72 is Tentacool… #74 is Geodude.
I think Ahakarin is referring to how Commander’s official name is ‘a seventy five digit serial number ending in “B52”.’ So 72 digits + B52.
…And here I thought it was a pun on rock-hard, forgetting that bit of trivia.
Now I really want to know what he used.
Crawdaunt? Kingler?
Rock would use a Machamp. Nothing else in the first generation fits the theme of muscles and a masculine appearance better.
Since he doesn’t usually care too much, I am now headcanoning that he’s got a Wigglytuff in there. CP 10,287.
“You think you can waltz into MY territory and occupy MY gyms? NO. Not today. Not you, Jared, and certainly not THE CANADIAN GUY!”
Plot twist- Canada Guy takes over the gym and becomes unbeatable because free healthcare. Commander and Jared must band together to defeat him.
http://media.giphy.com/media/9aXNIJ22JQpvG/giphy.gif
They go that high IN THE FUTURE.
Bwahahaha, I love seeing commander worked up like this ^.^
I was pretty surprised to see how high CP goes just from the initial game. I’ve mostly got ‘mons in the 600 range, which I thought was good until I started seeing my local Gyms all get overrun by 1100, 1200, and up Pokémon from trainers 5 levels higher than me. I’m scared to see what a max-CP Gyarados from a level 20 trainer would be.
By the by, CP seems to get called “level” quite a lot by players, since Pokémon are normally given regular levels in the main series. GO has a significantly different system.
Because CP IS a function of level, the level is just not shown in the UI- you need to look into the code to find it.
Basically, your pokemon can only be as high level as you are. Their CP is found by a combination of that particular species’s standard invisible Attack and Defense stats combined with their invisible IVs (Individual Values, identical in concept as the ones in the standard games except it only goes to 15 rather then 31). Theres a third invisible stat, Stamina, that goes into figuring out your pokemon’s HP.
But yeah, everytime you power up a pokemon with dust, you are raising its level by 1/2.
If you want more info, https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/ is the place to go.
Neat-o.
Oh man, I totally hope Jared yummies down and brings the pain to the Commander.
I say Canada is gonna take over next.
It’s been a while since I’ve played Rochard. Not a bad game. Nothing spectacular, but solid and a shame the team fell apart after the game came out.
I have a question: I recently read the whole comic again start to finish. It’s as good as I remember, but what happened to the plot revolving around the agency? You havent seemed to touch on the story behind helping some maladjusted guys integrate back into society for a while.
The joke was getting too monotonous for me, I just draw what I strikes me as funny/I have time to.
Does it still happen and we only see the interesting cases while the rest is basically what goes on in the everyday lives of the commander and his crew?
more or less.
I don’t get why the commander’s so worked up. Was Jared slacking off or something?
Maybe because he enters his home, without even saying “Hello”? Mobile games tend to do that to you. Much worse with mobile AR games.
Not that AR games to blame, but childish people will always be childish people (except they change, then they won’t be childish anymore).
In the other hand, I’ll approve if Commander using FEAR.
Judging by the office furnishings, I’d say that that’s the office, not the Commander’s actual house. By “my house”, he means that he’s the guy in charge, and he won’t let Jared have any sense of power by running the gym.
It’s not literally the house he lived in. They’re at the agency (ceiling tiles and filing cabinets confirm). He’s using it in the same way a basketball player would say that after blocking an opponent’s shot during a home game. Or something.
In the last strip, Jared took over the Gym located near the agency, and said “so now I’m the boss”. Rock has a bit of a thing about people challenging his authority, apparently. It’s also been stated that he’s far more like Jared than he initially appears.
http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/comic/i-bet-he-names-every-magikarp-mr-fish it’s explained in this comic
In the last comic, Jared said, “Also, there’s a gym here, and I took it over, so now I’m the boss!”
Rock misinterpreted that to mean “now I’m the boss of the agency,” rather than “I’m the boss of the GYM,” so he’s asserting his authority, and establishing that the agency is his, and HE is the boss.
Also, you’ve got weird popup ads spawning on the commander’s chest.
Hmm… I wonder what kind of pokemons would CB train.
Probably Rock and Fighting types.
I kinda want to imagine he’s using his kids’ favorite types…so maybe bug pokemon?
Two tours of duty on the centipede planet during centipede season and even love for your children won’t make you like bugs.
XD
That’s right, I forgot. So maybe not bugs.
i really love the implication here that the Commander spent an inordinate amount of time catching enough pidgeys to grind to those levels. the rest of the office assumes he’s off doing something manly in the woods when really he’s just parked under a lure, strategizing lucky eggs.
I think he wasn’t parked, I think he just was out running constantly in areas with rare pokemon. His encounter rate would be *way* above a normal persons, what with how much ground he could cover, and probably attack every gym he met, not even necessarily claiming them, just for the XP. Use some incense on top of that, I think, but grind, grind, grind.
That’s the sound when the rock hits.
*THUMP THUMP* Make some sound when the rock hits.
OMG THAT IS JUST TOO FUNNY!
abusing time travel for pokemon go is cheating, boss.
Heck with time travel, he’s a super soldier! He can hit every good place to check rare pokemon, every pokestop on the area, *on foot*, and collect pokemon on the way all the while!
Is it safe to assume Commander is Valor? Y’know, because of the red jacket. I also assume Jared is Mystic solely because Mr. Fish is blue.
That makes sense, though somehow I see Jared also possibly being on Team Instinct, what with evolving a Magikarp by using it as a bludgeon.
Also, going back and looking at Jared’s introduction, the way the Pokémon showed up in his yard was surprisingly prescient of Pokémon GO’s interface.
Jared would be Rocket.
That seems highly unlikely. I get that you’re probably referencing his incompetence in comparison to Jessie and James, but Jared’s a stand-up guy and doesn’t seem prone to criminal behavior.
Frankly, I think it better that they NOT have their respective teams revealed given that there is a small but quite vocal portion of the game’s fanbase who take the joking rivalry between the teams as out-and-out animosity.
It’s also entirely possible that they’re on the SAME team but Rock went out of his way to get as strong as possible for the sake of putting himself in a Gym leader and not letting Jared be able to take over the Gym by beating it.
Nice to see Commander Badass reminding people how he got his title. Sure, he’s something of a father figure, but sometimes you’ve got to lay down the law.
HOLY GOODNESS FOLLOWUP FROM LAST WEEK IS AWESOME!
And then Canadian Guy kicks him off his throne in the space of ten minutes.
“Ay danno, pokeymans halthcare?”
I feel like this has been happening. Like, Jared got him worked up, but then he discovered Canadian Guy had like, a quarter of the Gym’s in the area and he just lost. his. shit. No. Not this time.
By the time Jared caught up here Rock’s still got the momentum going. Rock will dominate Jared. Rock will dominate Canada. Rock will dominate!
sweet lord, this was unexpected, i LOVE it! <3
No two-bit loser will be beating his high-scores and stuff XD
Jared is an 8 bit loser, though. Possibly even 16 bit!
He’s an Xbox loser based on the console series he played most – that’s a 128-bit loser, I think?
I did not expect this comic but it is amazing.
Fantastic follow-up…also, looking at the last panel, all I can think is “MY PECS HAVE PECS”
I’m pretty sure Commander just picked up Pokemon Go, played for years, then went back in time and dominated his own house just for this.
Also, good to see there are limits even to Jaredisms. It has to stop at some point.
And if you’re wondering how he brought his levels back in time with him, the answer is DON’T THINK ABOUT TIME TRAVEL.
nah.. he traveled back to when the game first was released, then each time he hit the point he first left, he traveled back again. so there were multiple copies of him running around in the same timeframe, in different places, all playing at once. which allowed him to power level since it was still only one account..
Would it be at all possible to get a version of Rock in the last panel (verbal assertion of dominance included) as a standalone picture? I can see that becoming a VERY useful reaction image
Memes need to happen on their own.
….my boner
Hoo boy, I had a feeling this might happen when I saw his reaction to Jared saying “now I’m the boss”. Let’s hope Jared is smart enough to admit defeat before this escalates.
Conveniences of the time travel. :)
This is fantastic. Last week’s cliffhanger “What?” resolved. xD
Lt. Surge vibes here. Hm.. that means CB has a Raichu?
Machamp Obviously. And probably a Chansey too.
Did you know that Commander’s works a part time job as the King of Fighters, under the alias Antonov?
http://imgur.com/7KOutJ4
http://imgur.com/5q5jlf6
Wow he DOES look a lot like CB :D
You may get to be the prof, but he gets to be the champ.
Y’know not gonna lie, with the rather attentive ‘What?’ by B52 in the last comic, we really, really should have seen this coming. I had a hunch, but honestly speaking, this has me literally floored.
THIS IS HIS GYM. YOU EARN IT FROM THE COMMANDER. AND THE COMMANDER ALONE.
This just made me give a squee, then burst out laughing really hard. Thank you so much. :’)
It’s okay Commander, I couldn’t get my preferred usernames either so I had to settle for “HeyItsAxel”
(I do run into “Axel” being taken a lot but PoGo is the first time in a very long time I couldn’t use “AuthorX”)
I got the game within an hour of its launch and already couldn’t get my preferred name.
I guess I’m lucky enough to have never in my life encountered that problem
This is how most of us feel when we take back a gym.
I’m on the yellow team. Globally, yellow is the least populated team, and it holds true locally for me. Everyone I know kept yelling at me, literally in some cases, to pick red or blue, so I picked yellow solely out of spite.
When I take over a gym, even if it’s just an extremely temporary thing where I jump in and place my pokemon into one that was cleared by red and blue fighting each other, I totally strike a mental “My house!” pose.
Wow. So apparently Pokemon Go is a big enough deal to warrant two comics.
Considering one of the main characters is a Pokemon trainer? We’re going to see a lot more.
This might be the scariest the Commander has ever looked. This is now making me wonder if the Commander has the same problems using touchscreens as I do (tiny screens and big hands are natural enemies).
The keys are too tiny for every finger, even though I don’t have big hands. They work better if you stop thinking about it. (I don’t try to hit the key, just type and it works for me.)
So I am guessing the fact that there is a game by the name Rochard is a coincidence.
Dude, come on Jared. Commander is a badass, but this is a game, man. A POKEMON game! If there’s ONE place you can beat him in, it’s here and now. This is your chance, Jared. SHOW COMMANDER WHO’S THE REAL BOSS HERE!
Yep. This constitutes nothing short of a declaration of war. Of Pokéwar.
I hope this gets to be so intense that C.B. grabs some balls, goes and captures some real Pokémans, and the battle starts spilling out into the real world.
Then Duke Nukem has to tell them to grow up and be responsible and stop razing half a city block with Hyper Beams and Earthquakes.
Duke Nukem: Voice of Reason would be a MUCH better game then game then Duke Nukem Forever. Maybe it could be a Phoenix Wright crossover…
“Hey, look, I did some things in the ’90s that I really regret. I was a different person, then. Trust me, you don’t wanna go down that road. Sure, it seems like it’s all sweet jetpacks and blasting pigcops, but there’s a real dark side. I have to live with what I did.”
Am I the only one who thought of the game, Rochard?
Ctrl+F “Rochard” says that no, you are not.
Well now I’m just curious what type of pokemon he would be catching, and who he put in the gym.
My headcanon is that it’s a horrifically powerful Wigglytuff.
The robot unicorn ref in the title makes me imagine it’s a Rapidash. Can he have multiple accounts and fill up the gym?
if i could buy a print of any of the comics done for this webcomic, this would be the one i would buy. i have not stopped laughing. i laugh harder every time i scroll up. i am typing with my dying breath. send help.
This seems like it would have been a perfect time to make a Brock joke. “B(52)rockLobster” anyone?
My God. It’s perfect. I can’t stop laughing.
Are we getting an arc out of this? Copyright and fair use laws&rules aside, I would love to see these two go at it, if only for a short while.
I KNOW how this storyline will end. I red from the beginning! Canada guy will beat all of CBs pokemons and take the gym. I just KNOW it! He did it with robot unicorn and he will do it here. Old habits & tensions die hard ;)
Well, let this be a lesson to Jared. Never talk like you’re a bigger badass than someone born with the sole purpose is to be a badass.
Do I smell a gym battle? Probably one of the only arenas where Jared has even a technical chance of winning against the Commander, haha.
That’s what I’m saying! This is the area of battle where Jared could do this! You can’t live in the Commander’s shadow forever, Jared! This is your chance to show who’s boss! I’m actually going to be a little disappointed if Jared doesn’t step up his game here.
Mr Fish Looms in the background….
Heh! Looks like Jared just ran into the biggest “boss fight” he’ll ever face in the game; his REAL LIFE BOSS!
But seriously, something like this has been popping up in the news a lot recently; people hunting down Pokemon are obliviously walking right into dangerous situations & getting hurt…It won’t surprise me any to see one of them wind up on the Darwin Awards website someday soon.
Brilliant on so many levels!
I think a confrontation this brutal requires a suitably brutal theme song. Here’s one.
Dang, CB looks pretty intimidating in that last panel. I’m almost too nervous to laugh
Oh my, how the tables have turned
I moonlight as a librarian at an art college during the regular school year, and apparently the library is a gym. This is probably a prime example of how I’m going to be…
Who’s house? Aave’s house.
Aw, that should’ve been “whose,” dang it.
Times like this, you can DEFINITELY see how Rock is the Jared of his group.
Did….did Jared just emasculate the Commander into a blatant show of insecurity in his masculinity?!
I laughed so hard, I’m literally crying.
(Old definition of literally)
Except that Pokemon are JARED’S territory. I sense an unexpectedly even turf war coming…
I love how the Commander is always kinda confused or skeptical about the games Jared plays like they’re not for someone like him and then a couple comics later (or less) he’s become obsessed with them. He’s not so above it :P
He’s on the record as being a strong believer in “learn something every day.” On some days, what he learns is, “hey, this game is pretty great.”
I just marathon’d MGDMT because i put my back out. F’in Epic. I don’t even care about the jar. Epic. There, did it again.
At First when I read this I thought he literaly meant this was ‘His House’ … As in Jared walked unthinkingly into his home because there was a gym that showed up there…
Given how fit he is, he probably didn’t even need to cheat. He probably just ran through town on a grid pattern and caught everything more efficiently than even driving.
I love love love this comic, and I normally laugh at each page. Today when I read that last line I choked on my drink a little from laughing so hard. Like gross sobbing kind of laughing.
I think we all knew this was coming.
Half of my current obsession is getting a really high level Gyarados so I can name it Mr. Fish and take over a local gym.
I can’t help but read that last line in Brock Samson’s voice
I’m guessing the Commander’s a bit intense about this since all the other guys at the agency got into Pokemon Go! and got really competitive. Rock’s just trying to keep order in a place that’s already a powder keg and Pokemon Go is an easily accessed lit match.
Why do I feel like his gym would be a fighting type one?
A terrifying thought occurred to me… If the space future command wants to really unleash Commander’s Sociopathic tendencies they just have to make the Space Commies beat his High Scores in games…
Gym led by a dragonite named “Garlic Bread” with power off the scale. When that gym is still up in the generic spacefuture, still standing under Garlic Bread’s rule, someday his siblings are going to get the joke that’s been hundreds of years in the making.
Yeah, it sounds like im not the only on that though it was a rather insecure reaction from the commander. Had honestly expected him to be more calm about the matter.
He’s definitely team valour
Rock’s probably used his time travel to zip around the world and catch every Pokemon that’s currently legal – that’s 145 of them, counting the four region-exclusives (Mr. Mime in Europe, Farfetch’d in East Asia, Kangaskhan in Australia and New Zealand, and Tauros in North America). He’ll also be the first person to nab the remaining six whenever they’re released/found/whatever because of that.
This is by far my favorite part of your comic so far, of course combined with the previous strip. I’ve never laughed so hard. xD
…Why do I imagine that Captain went back in time to the minute of drop date to start a pokemon go profile/account so he could beat Jared a week or two after it’s release, and that prior, he had no interest in the game???
Not related directly to today’s comic, but still relevant to the general topic…This is a darn good idea:
http://iwastesomuchtime.com/on/?i=112703
My workplace actually is a gym and this is exactly how I am about it lol
I’ve never seen Mr. Badass so upset about anything. He was less upset about being turned into a shoujo anime character.
I’m thinking Rochard would be cooler if it was pronounced like Picard but with a “rah” at the start.
Ra’kard
Also it sounds like rock hard now.
That’s the joke. It supposed to say Rock Hard Lobster.
Rocharizard
Is that pronounced “ro-shard,” or “rock-‘ard”? Hmm… I think I’d go for the second one with a French accent, so you don’t immediately realize. :)