Last night in #stripcreator, I observed that kaufman's Punderdog had a habit of fighting crime by talking about it in the past tense. Of course that led to something like this. Feel free to expand on the idea.

[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man and Potential Lad 1 (of 8)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man and Potential Lad 2 (of 8)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man and Potential Lad 3 (of 8)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man and Potential Lad 4 (of 8)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man and Potential Lad 5 (of 8)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man and Potential Lad 6 (of 8)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man and Potential Lad 7 (of 8)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man and Potential Lad 8 (of 8)']

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

You are a genius, and I hate you for it.

[this is good]

Future perfect.

I know I'll get static for this, but Potential Lad should be grounded.

On behalf of Kali, I give it eight thumbs up!

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What others say about boorite!

Wow... I usually make it a point never to make comments in the RMDC forum but this series was bloody great. Outstanding.

Of course, this is coming from a grammar nerd, but I've found that it's best to take praise when you can get it and only ridicule your fans BEHIND their backs.

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"Old" is the old new.

Pardon my use of the pluperfect subjunctive, but:

SCROD!

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ken.kaufman@gmail.com

I wasn't expecting such a positive response. Thanks, guys.

I looked back at my IRC logs and discovered that it's actually Brad who deserves credit for coming up with the name "Retroactive Man":

[00:15] hey kaufman... can you explain http://www.stripcreator.com/view.php?ID=101633 to me?
[00:16] he dammed the torrent without even trying
[00:16] oh... okay.
[00:16] you know, much of his crimefighting seems to be retroactive
[00:17] he always talks about what he did but he never does it... sort of
[00:17] true
[00:17] uses the past tense a lot
[00:17] Retroactive Man.
[00:17] the power of words ;-)
[00:17] that's a great idea for a series, actually
[00:17] Retroactive Man will have come to the rescue!
[00:17] Ha ha,
[00:18] Subjunctive Man might have saved the day.
[00:18] I'm too tired to add anything to this.
[00:19] Double Negative Man might not haven't, etc. Please fill in the rest.
[00:21] Poor Subject-Verb Agreement Man save the day.
[00:24] Captain Monosyllabic says "Grrr." about your obvious rip-offs
[00:25] Captain Obvious gripes about Captain Monosyllabic stepping on his property
[00:25] Potential Lad could save the day.
[00:26] The day was saved by Passive Voice Man.

By the way, kaufman, even after you gave me that explanation, I somehow still didn't really get that strip until earlier today. Now that I do, I think it's pretty funny.

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

I didn't hate it.
5 mehs.

My head hurts.

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...Trot and Cap'n Bill were free from anxiety and care. Button-Bright never worried about anything. The Scarecrow, not being able to sleep, looked out of the window and tried to count the stars.

kaufman, scrod is the past pluperfect, not the pluperfect subjunctive - pluperfect subjunctive would be scrowed, continuing that bizarre conjugation.

so NYAAAH you stinky butt!

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AIM: HeeeresWiL | RAAR! TOBOR WILL DEFENSTRATE YOU!

[list=1][*]pluperfect means past perfect, so "past pluperfect" is a repetitive redundancy, unless you mean so far in the past that bunner doesn't remember it.

[*]If you don't think "scrod" is the proper pluperfect subjunctive, try telling that to a Boston cabbie.

[*]Speaking of Boston cabbies, a friend of mine once flew up from Georgia to Boston, and on the cab ride from the airport to the hotel, the cabbie asked her why she was in town.

"I'm here for the Mensa convention," she explained.

"Mensa, isn't that the organization for smart people?"

After she confirmed that it was, he asked her where she came from. When she told him Georgia, he was surprised: "But I thought all the people in Georgia were illegitimate."[/list=1]Disclaimer for the Georgians here: Opinions of the cab driver are not necessarily those of the author.

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ken.kaufman@gmail.com

HHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

excellent.

It doesn't not even suck at all.
I like it too.
Hear hear!

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.

Because you didn't not ask for it....

[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man & Potential Lad Travel Through Time (1/13)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man & Potential Lad Travel Through Time (2/13)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man & Potential Lad Travel Through Time (3/13)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man & Potential Lad Travel Through Time (4/13)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man & Potential Lad Travel Through Time (5/13)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man & Potential Lad Travel Through Time (6/13)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man & Potential Lad Travel Through Time (7/13)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man & Potential Lad Travel Through Time (8/13)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man & Potential Lad Travel Through Time (9/13)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man & Potential Lad Travel Through Time (10/13)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man & Potential Lad Travel Through Time (11/13)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man & Potential Lad Travel Through Time (12/13)']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man & Potential Lad Travel Through Time (13/13)']

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

arghh! I havn't replied to this yet?
These are super ass kicking comics.

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Batman created by Bob Kane

The also punch ass!

Bwahahahaha!!!

It occurs to me that an episode with Retroactive Man meeting The Artist Formerly Known as Prince might have potential.

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ken.kaufman@gmail.com

He should fight captain obvious.
"I'm shooting you with my ray gun!"

moof, my mistake. Past pluperfect is a tense involved in time travel, in speech about a past trip into the future in which both that past and "future" already happened. Conjugating screw into that is beyond me at the moment. Pluperfect subjunctive is right, but I still think it should be "scrowed", boston cabbies be damned.

And in other news, you are pardoned for using the pluperfect subjunctive in the first place.

[size=1]

...

if only there was a little more kaufman in all of us.[/size]

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AIM: HeeeresWiL | RAAR! TOBOR WILL DEFENSTRATE YOU!

Like a Saturday Night Live sketch, the Retroactive Man comics will keep going long after they've stopped being funny. I've got some vague ideas for another series, but for now, here are a couple of one-shots, including the fan-requested meeting with TAFKAP!

[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Stories: Formerly Known As']
[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Stories: The Origin of Retroactive Man']

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

Just so I can beat a dead horse a bit more, I was under the impression that only languages like Latin and French even had a "pluperfect." In English it's just called "past perfect," although it means the same. Am I wrong here?

Oh, and by the way this is possibly my favorite series ever created by an sc.com user -- except maybe my CC: 146 entries. And sorry, evil_d, the new ones are still funny, so don't turn in your application for SNL cast member just yet.

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peddling the funny around since 09/24/2002

Don't say I never did nothin' for ya, boinky.

24 comics is a bit much for the forums, so I'll just give you the first and let you follow the links.

Brush up on the history of Captain Obvious first with deucepm's six-part series The Life of Captain Obvious.

[Click to view comic: 'Retroactive Man/Captain Obvious Crossover (1/24)']

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

Sigh, Retroactive Man was my hero.

Great comics, as usual. You should quit your job and disown your friends and familly so you can sit at your computer and make more.

Potential Lad is being a bit of a dick, isn't he? 8) What happened to him?

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"Old" is the old new.