Sandwiched in between the horror-adjacent cynicism of Charity Begins in Hell, and the more grounded drama of Murphy’s Law is… a Christmas special?
Oh yes. I LOVE Christmas. Always have and always will. From the very beginning, I had ALWAYS planned to do a Christmas special. I was mostly waiting for the story schedule to allow this run around Christmastime, and this was where it worked. The tone is of course, the funniest and lightest of the whole series, and even the art is just a little more cartoony than usual.
After cameoing in my own comic in Mad at the World and It Could Always Be Worse, this time I gave myself a starring role as a freely ripped-off snowman narrator. Much of Locke Saves Christmas is freely ripped off, and that’s kind of the point. It’s a love letter to all of the Christmas specials and songs that I love. Its legality is at times questionable, but I doubt Burl Ives’ estate or the Rankin-Bass is going to come after a webcomic that ran in the early aughts, so we may as well just enjoy it. I sure did.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is, of course, taking up a lot of the inspirational space here, but our holiday special also includes references to:
Muppet Family Christmas, Home Alone, Christmas Vacation, The Year Without a Santa Claus, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, A Christmas Carol, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, A Christmas Story, and Hey Santa by Carnie and Wendy Wilson. See if you can find them all!
The Muppet Family Christmas idea of getting ALL the characters together was really important to me, which is why Paige got shoe-horned into a dream sequence and Daniles is suddenly the sort of guy to attend a dive bar Christmas party and sing Holly Jolly Christmas. Maybe he’s drunk? Who cares. To quote Locke: “It’s Christmas. All kinds of random crap can happen.”
The Easter Eggs don’t end with Christmas pop culture. The Naughty List is comprised entirely of Graphic Smash co-creators and the Wombat toy was inspired by Digger, one of the very finest comics on Graphic Smash. Ursula Vernon blessed my usage of her titular character and if she’s googling herself and comes across this page, I hope she’s doing great!
Merry Christmas, everyone!