Very Very Compact Thanksgiving 2024
This is Marshall’s angry face. Cower in fear of his unbridled rage.
But yeah, it’s Turkey Day here in The States when you read this, but I’m actually getting this queued up waaaaaaay back in the past on Tuesday. Hopefully, that means that in the time between then and you reading this, I’ll have gotten even more Christmas pages finished up, because THOSE start going live on Sunday!
…also, it’s just now occurring to me that, if Far Out There were more popular, then this image would absolutely be the stuff of memes. I’m never sure if that’s the sort of thing I should be disappointed or relieved about.
Sorry, Marshall, but as an Ultra-Anti-Foodie, that right there is pretty much my dream food. No-prep, inexpensive, easily portable and storable, no refrigeration or heating, nutritionally balanced without all the usual Thanksturkey calories, and reduces the entire wasted time of meals to about 2 seconds. There’s basically no down-side. None. I may just have to move to the Persian Confederation. 😛
Also, the correct answer is that you should be relieved. There’s a 100% chance you’d find your work meme’d into things you would find upsetting/disturbing/infuriating…or worse, because Internet.
Insert meme of Marshall holding up the very concept of memes and declaring it disgusting
Ed8, you seem to be assuming that pill is in it’s edible format. That pill likely needs to be cracked open and have water or be shoved into a hot oven on a tray to expand into the dinner.
I can’t actually read the white text, it’s too small and expanding the image doesn’t help, but it’s also entirely possible that the pill only works with a specific machine that transforms the pill into something edible.
Actually, I can make it into something realistic. The pill-to-meal technology was originally designed for vending machines, allowing them to store more product for longer with less spoilage. That way the vending machines only needed to be refilled every six to twelve months, instead of every week or two. That path failed for two reasons, the first being mould infection due to lack of upkeep and the second being the creation of disposable vending machines. The second of which being the main reason the technology failed, as the transformation of the pills into arguably digestible meals resulted in the mould being hidden, and only being noticed by consumers who were hospitalized. Instead, they took the idea to the masses, kind of like how Sodastream in the real world allows people to make their own soft drinks at home.
This also means that one pill has all the normal calories of a full thanksgiving dinner, likely for four people, stored within it.
There’s a bit of an artistic error at work here, where I drew Marshall’s hand too small (and really, just drew too much of a wide shot in general) and thus had to keep the pill too big in order for the writing to be even somewhat legible. While the object in the finished drawing is definitely too big to swallow in one gulp, that actually WAS the intention when I started.
Also, the white text isn’t actually anything funny, just a reference to one of those mysterious future space countries I occasionally mention to create a sense of world building.
I still feel the high-res version should be available somewhere, maybe patreon, or vote incentive – if you want to see what the secret tiny text is, you have to vote!!! Extortion pays!!
If we assume he’s holding it up way to close to the “camera”, it’s only a bit less wide than finger, so could still be swallowable…barely. Alternately, we can say it’s a chewable capsule, thus not a choking hazard. The “Cranberry edition” refers to the capsule’s taste when chewed-if you swallowed it whole, it really wouldn’t matter which edition you got.
OH RIGHT! I actually said I was gonna start doing that with these sorts of resolution problems, didn’t I? Crap, I totally forgot about that!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/far-out-there-up-116950844
HEY, LOOK AT THAT!
Even if that were so that you have to add water and a meal pops out, many of my points still count, about it being easy to store, convenient, etc. Just don’t get caught in a rain storm with a pocket full of them. That really would be disgusting.
Text says something like “Only authorized for use in the Persean Confederation”, thus my statement that I was going to move there, which probably seemed a non sequitur without the context of the tiny white text.
Still, I get where DD is coming from. The way the page ultimately turned out, the “pill” looks about the size of, like, a prize ball from a gatcha game (or, maybe, one of those old containers that they used to sell pantyhose in)
I try never to assume the actual relative size, timeframe, age, or chronological order of anything depicted in FOT 😉
Except, of course, when doing so can create a fun theory.