I think we’ll get a teal or blue/green in between this and the final green eyes.
Though we’re going to get a quick reversion to red when he learns about the bomb still being active. I think something’s gotta give and it’s Scott leaving the group.
Pretty sure the blue color was planned all along, with the purple as intermediate step. Same for the name; and while cleverly found, it felt rather anti-climactic, almost cringy even… going from hardcore world domination to almost human-sympathizer. Z’s fury made him so interesting, and now that’s gone. 🙁
Thinking the same thing. Please, deactivate that switch! Don’t break my heart, Tim! I don’t want to see the angry fall out of Zeke finding out about it, not after so much development.
I have a very bad feelings about the switch. The controller is in Scott’s hands, but he’s not participating in Zeke’s evolution as Ethan and Lucas are.
Which makes Lucas the only one that can do something to stop it, as he’s the only on currently who both knows of the perimeter and also of Zeke’s personhood.
Then again, it may happen naturally between Scott and Zeke to begin with. Zeke seems to respect Scott in ways that he doesn’t for any other human, and it’s clear that his words on last Friday’s page affected him greatly. If Ethan was the first he convinced of his person-hood, and Lucas the second, he probably hopes for Scott to be the third.
JozMk.II
3 years ago
Twenty panels, all to give him the same name as before.
I love it. This one and the page from yesterday are so incredibly deep, I really like the way Zeke is thinking, and I really hope there will be a non-lethal solution for the still-in-place killswitch boom thingie.
I get the impression from your response that that felt like a slap to the face. Guess I should think more before posting at midnight when I’m dog-tired. I think it’s fine that you felt driven to use Zeke’s name-choosing as a vehicle to drive his character development. It’s certainly interesting seeing him, Ethan, and Lucas standing in the same room and talking as civilized individuals, even colleagues with mutual respect. It’s quite a departure and development from them fighting in deadly combat as arch-enemies with burning hate from Zeke like in previous Analog and D-Pad story arcs. And I… Read more »
Ethan, Lucas, Scott, Lilah, they all have the same name and similar personality traits as in CAD 1.0, but their envoirnments and history are different, as are their relationships with each other. why would you think Zeke will return to his same CAD 1.0 past self just because his name didn’t change?
At this point it almost feels like the “You sneaky, lying, backstabbing meatbags never deactivated the bomb!?” bit is all but guaranteed to happen soon. Personally I’m hoping for a deviation from the blame everyone trope.
He was not a villain, he was just a shady character minding is own business without letting anyone interfere. He was a private “grumpy” person more or less like in this universe (except here we know why)
Scott’s a pretty low-key, calm individual. Very few things get him emotionally riled up, and they’re all kind of centered around two things: having innocent people being put needlessly in danger, and his relationship with his deceased fiancee and unwillingness to move on.
So I don’t think that’ll happen any time soon. The last thing he wants at this point is to be personally responsible. To Ethan and Lucas, “innocent people being murdered and it being all your fault” is a vague hypothetical, while survivor’s guilt makes that everyday life for Scott.
Agreed. He won’t come to that conclusion smoothly over time by being with Zeke. He’d have to need Zeke to save Lucas/Ethan, the only remaining ties he has to life.
There’s so many other words, we can skip the odd one here and there.
Twilight Faze
3 years ago
D’awwwwww he likes being called Zeke. Our bot is growing up :3
no thanks nintendo
3 years ago
Thought it was going to be a few more pages before somebody did that. ?
Tim
3 years ago
Glory to our benevolent robot overlords
Erika
3 years ago
Did ZK ever settle on “they” for a pronoun? It definitely sounded like that was what the humans were leaning toward, but I can’t remember if we heard any final thoughts on the subject.
Ethan calls them “king”, which is a traditionally masculine title with neutral alternatives (monarch, ruler, etc). Of course, that could just be Ethan slipping up and forgetting that pronoun choices also apply to gendered nouns- I still do that all the time myself.
I believe Zeke declared themselves “King” before the discussion occurred so It would probably be best to fall back on that. Could always just declare it gender neutral too, like they did with Lord Dominator.
I might be wrong, but I feel like the idea of ‘gender’ was less important to Zeke than a name. After all, that’s what was eventually fixated on – ZK expressed some level of dissatisfaction with ‘he’ ‘she’ ‘it’ and ‘they.’ I guess we’ll just need to watch and see what Ethan and Lucas do, and whether Zeke corrects them, ignores them, or just ‘allows’ their anthropomorphizing, in the same way that ‘Zeke’ was allowed as a nickname. I don’t think that the usage of “king” was a solid confirmation of maleness, in any case; it’s more of a title,… Read more »
Maybe Zeke is using masculine-sounding voice (was that ever clarified?) and hence Ethan sort of (subconsciously perhaps) assumed they are male? Or kind of just because, as I think people tend to assume their own gender, or at least I think I tend to, when talking about unknown people or fictional characters.
Zeke also wore pants but no shirt and was made by a big Weeb to be a ninja, pretty sure the intent was for Zeke to be a male as apposed to a Kunoichi (female ninja).
“Waaaaaah, this free content isn’t good enough for me”
Enclave
3 years ago
Really well done Tim.
Damion
3 years ago
Character depth and development. I love it. Calling it now though, Zeke found, traced, AND deactivated his own kill switch ages ago. He knows who did it, who knew about it or didn’t, and what he’s going to do to the guilty party(ies). He’s wacky, not stupid.
I have been thinking the same thing. As ZK becomes less murderous the response might be another trolling rather than a fit of rage. You know, rig up a fake explosion to set off whenever ready, just to inflict guilt rather than physical pain… And ZK might not be upset about the meatbags leaving the kill switch active. After all, it is the logical thing to do, and almost certainly what ZK would have done if the positions were reversed.
This is more or less what I’m expecting as well. Not sure if he fully deactivated it, but his frank discussion behind the Z.K. name as well as him still staying in Automata during the nights makes me think he at least knows about it.
Fully expecting at least some sort of discussion or hint towards Scott about it to end this particular comic series.
Matt G.
3 years ago
Can I say how irrationally happy I am that we found a logical way to name them Zeke? 🙂
As a person who’s name is Zeke, you have made me feel immense joy that a character I find so hilarious is named after me. Thank you. This… kind of makes up for never finding my name on a coke bottle
Horab
3 years ago
I grew up reading these comics, always loved Zeke the most. This chapter got me tearing up man.
Kevin Greenbaum
3 years ago
Gonna go bright red again when he learns he can still explode at any given time.
Mike
3 years ago
I have to know… is this the original inspiration for the name of “Zeke” in the first CAD Comic, or is it just a happy accident that the name choice of “Zeke” maps very well as a nickname for this “Zero Knowledge” thing?
24
So we have Zeekay aka “Zeke” in the end.
And a new Eyecolor with Blue Eyes, nice.
It will be interesting if it now stays blue or if next step is green.
So basicly red -> magenta -> blue -> green
goddamn RGB everywhere >_<
And I lost the remoter that works for my 19″ case.
I wonder if an emotional conflict will be represented by an animated gif where he cycles through all the colors?
I hope so, that would be so cool!
(five years from now)
“Z.K.? Yes… that was what they used to call me. Z.K. the Blue. That was my name.”
“Zeke….”
” *I* am Z.K. the White. And I come back to you now – at the turn of the tide.”
I think we’ll get a teal or blue/green in between this and the final green eyes.
Though we’re going to get a quick reversion to red when he learns about the bomb still being active. I think something’s gotta give and it’s Scott leaving the group.
That, or Zeke doing something that saves Ethan/Lucas. Scott would change his mind and apologize for that, he already lost his entire world once.
Pretty sure the blue color was planned all along, with the purple as intermediate step. Same for the name; and while cleverly found, it felt rather anti-climactic, almost cringy even… going from hardcore world domination to almost human-sympathizer. Z’s fury made him so interesting, and now that’s gone. 🙁
I imagine he’ll go back to that once he finds out they have an active bomb inside of him.
Happiness is blue, and Zeke has friends. Today is a good day.
It is, indeed.
It’s a good day to deactivate the killswitch. That ball is going to drop, and it is hoisted higher, and higher…
The tension is unbearable.
Thinking the same thing. Please, deactivate that switch! Don’t break my heart, Tim! I don’t want to see the angry fall out of Zeke finding out about it, not after so much development.
dont think they can deactivate, but extending the range to the store interior rather than just the back room is reasonable and likely a simple matter.
If the GPS was like our GPS, the neighbor buildings would be included.
I have a very bad feelings about the switch. The controller is in Scott’s hands, but he’s not participating in Zeke’s evolution as Ethan and Lucas are.
Which makes Lucas the only one that can do something to stop it, as he’s the only on currently who both knows of the perimeter and also of Zeke’s personhood.
Then again, it may happen naturally between Scott and Zeke to begin with. Zeke seems to respect Scott in ways that he doesn’t for any other human, and it’s clear that his words on last Friday’s page affected him greatly. If Ethan was the first he convinced of his person-hood, and Lucas the second, he probably hopes for Scott to be the third.
Twenty panels, all to give him the same name as before.
*Pages. A panel is a box within a comic strip.
And if that’s all you took away from these twenty pages… *shrug*
I love it. This one and the page from yesterday are so incredibly deep, I really like the way Zeke is thinking, and I really hope there will be a non-lethal solution for the still-in-place killswitch boom thingie.
I get the impression from your response that that felt like a slap to the face. Guess I should think more before posting at midnight when I’m dog-tired. I think it’s fine that you felt driven to use Zeke’s name-choosing as a vehicle to drive his character development. It’s certainly interesting seeing him, Ethan, and Lucas standing in the same room and talking as civilized individuals, even colleagues with mutual respect. It’s quite a departure and development from them fighting in deadly combat as arch-enemies with burning hate from Zeke like in previous Analog and D-Pad story arcs. And I… Read more »
Ethan, Lucas, Scott, Lilah, they all have the same name and similar personality traits as in CAD 1.0, but their envoirnments and history are different, as are their relationships with each other. why would you think Zeke will return to his same CAD 1.0 past self just because his name didn’t change?
And we’re still waiting for the correct pronouns. ?
Zeke already chose. They.
At this point it almost feels like the “You sneaky, lying, backstabbing meatbags never deactivated the bomb!?” bit is all but guaranteed to happen soon. Personally I’m hoping for a deviation from the blame everyone trope.
Lol big time, seeing Zeke have a personal vendetta with Scott could be a fun dynamic.
I ‘member Scott actually being a villain in the og strip.
He was not a villain, he was just a shady character minding is own business without letting anyone interfere. He was a private “grumpy” person more or less like in this universe (except here we know why)
His penguin was the villain.
So… he was a henchman?
More or less.
What if Scott has a change of heart, and deactivates the bomb himself?
Scott’s a pretty low-key, calm individual. Very few things get him emotionally riled up, and they’re all kind of centered around two things: having innocent people being put needlessly in danger, and his relationship with his deceased fiancee and unwillingness to move on.
So I don’t think that’ll happen any time soon. The last thing he wants at this point is to be personally responsible. To Ethan and Lucas, “innocent people being murdered and it being all your fault” is a vague hypothetical, while survivor’s guilt makes that everyday life for Scott.
Agreed. He won’t come to that conclusion smoothly over time by being with Zeke. He’d have to need Zeke to save Lucas/Ethan, the only remaining ties he has to life.
Hoping more for a “HA! I figured you couldn’t actually remove it! That’s why I did it myself!”
Panel 1, Zeke balloon 2, “no longer plan to murder”.
The brain loves to autofill missing words on carriage returns.
There’s so many other words, we can skip the odd one here and there.
D’awwwwww he likes being called Zeke. Our bot is growing up :3
Thought it was going to be a few more pages before somebody did that. ?
Glory to our benevolent robot overlords
Did ZK ever settle on “they” for a pronoun? It definitely sounded like that was what the humans were leaning toward, but I can’t remember if we heard any final thoughts on the subject.
Ethan calls them “king”, which is a traditionally masculine title with neutral alternatives (monarch, ruler, etc). Of course, that could just be Ethan slipping up and forgetting that pronoun choices also apply to gendered nouns- I still do that all the time myself.
I believe Zeke declared themselves “King” before the discussion occurred so It would probably be best to fall back on that. Could always just declare it gender neutral too, like they did with Lord Dominator.
I might be wrong, but I feel like the idea of ‘gender’ was less important to Zeke than a name. After all, that’s what was eventually fixated on – ZK expressed some level of dissatisfaction with ‘he’ ‘she’ ‘it’ and ‘they.’ I guess we’ll just need to watch and see what Ethan and Lucas do, and whether Zeke corrects them, ignores them, or just ‘allows’ their anthropomorphizing, in the same way that ‘Zeke’ was allowed as a nickname. I don’t think that the usage of “king” was a solid confirmation of maleness, in any case; it’s more of a title,… Read more »
Maybe Zeke is using masculine-sounding voice (was that ever clarified?) and hence Ethan sort of (subconsciously perhaps) assumed they are male? Or kind of just because, as I think people tend to assume their own gender, or at least I think I tend to, when talking about unknown people or fictional characters.
Zeke also wore pants but no shirt and was made by a big Weeb to be a ninja, pretty sure the intent was for Zeke to be a male as apposed to a Kunoichi (female ninja).
“Waaaaaah, this free content isn’t good enough for me”
Really well done Tim.
Character depth and development. I love it. Calling it now though, Zeke found, traced, AND deactivated his own kill switch ages ago. He knows who did it, who knew about it or didn’t, and what he’s going to do to the guilty party(ies). He’s wacky, not stupid.
I’d really enjoy that story line, but I still expect it to be a surprise to Zk
I have been thinking the same thing. As ZK becomes less murderous the response might be another trolling rather than a fit of rage. You know, rig up a fake explosion to set off whenever ready, just to inflict guilt rather than physical pain… And ZK might not be upset about the meatbags leaving the kill switch active. After all, it is the logical thing to do, and almost certainly what ZK would have done if the positions were reversed.
This is more or less what I’m expecting as well. Not sure if he fully deactivated it, but his frank discussion behind the Z.K. name as well as him still staying in Automata during the nights makes me think he at least knows about it.
Fully expecting at least some sort of discussion or hint towards Scott about it to end this particular comic series.
Can I say how irrationally happy I am that we found a logical way to name them Zeke? 🙂
I’m happy about the solution too, but I’m still going to call them ZK. Less characters 😛
Sooo… if green is next, then in the grand scheme of colour progression, is Yellow like God-Mode??
Welcome back Zeke. We’ve missed you. 🙂
I could swear the name Zeke has been mentioned before… Maybe I’m remembering some other robot…
Was there a ‘Zeke’ in Fallout?
The robot from Cassiopeia Quinn is also called Zeke, perhaps that’s where you remember the name.
He was Zeke in the old timeline, but not yet in A&D. https://cad-comic.com/comic/not-natural/
I’m sure they were doing a bit, but bless you for looking that up!
I’ve always thought “Zeke” was pronounced “Zee-Kh”. Is it pronounced “Zee-Kee”?
Nah, you pronounced “Zeke” correctly. I’m going to use Zee-Kay but apparently ZK doesn’t mind it being “shortened” to Zeke.
Thanks!
Thank you Ethan, for a moment I thought I would have to forget Zeke inplace of ZeeKay.
“Oh yeah, it’s all coming together.”
So… When he learns about the bomb, is he going to take it relatively well but end up a bit jaded, turning his eyes a green to match? 😛
I see what you did there.
As a person who’s name is Zeke, you have made me feel immense joy that a character I find so hilarious is named after me. Thank you. This… kind of makes up for never finding my name on a coke bottle
I grew up reading these comics, always loved Zeke the most. This chapter got me tearing up man.
Gonna go bright red again when he learns he can still explode at any given time.
I have to know… is this the original inspiration for the name of “Zeke” in the first CAD Comic, or is it just a happy accident that the name choice of “Zeke” maps very well as a nickname for this “Zero Knowledge” thing?
They are unrelated.
It’s been so long I legit forgot his name was already Zeke
Wow… I often forget that I joined this comic some 12 years ago by now
Yaaaaaaaaasssss quuueeeeeennnn! Zeke is finally Zeke again!
For the others who might want it, the source of the original Zeke’s name, Ezekiel, spray-painted on his ass
https://cad-comic.com/comic/lint-life/
all hail Lord Zed
This has definitely been my favourite arc. Thank you so much for making it, Tim.