Cactus Comics Presents:

Well, that throws an interesting wrench in the works. If you don’t recognize that guy in the last panel or have no idea of what the name Clemens might mean in this context I’ll fill you in because it’s pretty important. Mr. Clemens is Samuel Clemens, know to most by his pen name Mark Twain. He was the author of … well, more stuff than I want to list right here and I’m not a Twain historian or anything, so I don’t want to confuse the issue more than I have to. Anyway, two of his most famous characters are Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Both characters first appeared in 1876 in the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. So why explain this? My hope is that all the characters stand on their own merits and knowledge of who they are will only serve to broaden the scope of the “universe” I’ve set them in. An explanation may serve to act as a bit of foreshadowing.

Now you may be asking why is it important to know that Sam Clemens is the guy at the door and that he created Tom, Huck, Becky, and Polly (as well as many others). In order to explain that we have to go way back to a conversation that occurred in Pat’s comic shop. Pat was explaining why strange things were happening in his shop. Here’s the link for the first page of that conversation. The quick version of it is that everything ever imagined, created, drawn or written exists in its own dimension. Any time someone imagines or creates something, he or she creates a new dimension. Pat is the guardian of all these dimensions and they are all accessible through his store. Now you’re thinking, “how does that explain Clemens existence within his own creation?” If you’re with me to this point, and I know you are, hang in there just a little longer. We’re almost there. The real Samuel Clemens died years ago. If you didn’t know that, I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you. It’s very sad news, I know. The good news is that as the creator of all those stories, and thus new dimensions, Clemens didn’t really die. He became like a god within those new dimensions. In other words, Tom just met his maker. Well actually, based on his reaction, we can surmise that Tom has known his maker for quite some time. I guess it’s really us that just met Tom’s maker.