Gaming Rivalry

A friendly round of video games between Mike and Lucy descends into name-calling, fifteen grudge matches, and one pet kicked clean through the roof. Along the way, a flashback reveals where Lucy's signature pink ribbon came from.

Gaming Rivalry
Chapter	2 of 127 (list of chapters)
Published	May 5, 2006 (2006-05-05)
Page count	4
Major characters	Mike, Lucy, Yashy
Minor characters	Blur, Carol
Locations	Mike's house
Collected in	Volume One, Omnibus 1
Chapter navigation
← Simple Pleasures	Merry Snow Day →
Read chapter

Synopsis

Lucy wins a round of Mike's fighting game with her trusty backspin, and Mike insists his health was perfect and only cowards backspin anyway. The argument spirals into name-calling, with Yashy and Blur heckling from their card game across the room until Mike kicks Blur into the sky.

Yashy figures Lucy's pink ribbon is there to prove her girlhood, and that sends the chapter into flashback. At age two, Lucy's mom offers her a doll to go with her toy car, and Lucy gleefully runs the doll over. At four, her mom kneels down and ties a ribbon around her neck: "If you ever feel lonely, this ribbon'll remind you how much I love you." Back in the present, Lucy admits the story is corny but comforting, and Mike immediately turns it into fresh ammunition.

Mike keeps re-litigating his loss, so Lucy demands a rematch. Fifteen matches later he has the backspin down cold, since his sister abuses the move too, and now Lucy is the one raging about cheap tactics. Mike savors the hypocrisy right up until he tells her she's cute when she's angry, and Lucy gets an idea.

Lucy goes abruptly saccharine, apologizing in a baby voice and hugging Mike's face to her chest. He gets as far as murmuring "So soft.." before Lucy beats him senseless, sighing that her ploy backfired. The two make up long enough to start a different game, which is soon back to screaming.

Lucy's apology hug works a bit too well.

Yashy, thoroughly fed up, climbs onto Lucy's back like a noble steed and yanks the ribbon with a mighty "GIDDIAP!!" An exterior shot shows her launched clean through the roof of Mike's house, screaming into the sky.

Character dynamics

• Mike and Lucy: Bickering over nothing is already the pair's standard mode, and Simple Pleasures showed the softer half of it. What changes here is the scoreboard. Lucy opens the chapter as the gloating champion of Mike's fighting game, and fifteen matches later Mike has mastered her signature move while she cries foul.

Trivia & observations

• This chapter is a remake of a much older one, with all four redrawn pages published in a single batch on March 23, 2010. Per the commentary, "the new version of this chapter" has Lucy's mother give the bow to show love and support, whereas the original framed it as validating Lucy's femininity, "kind of a lame message" in hindsight.
• The commentary also confirms the comic is set in 2006, which explains Mike's choice of racing game ("If only the comic didn't take place in 2006, Mike coulda referenced Twilight Princess!!").
• The chapter is Blur's series debut, and also the first appearance of Lucy's mom, who goes unnamed here and won't be called Carol for well over a hundred chapters.
• Mike credits his sister for his backspin mastery, an early nod to Haley, who doesn't appear on panel until much later in the series.

Related chapters

• Simple Pleasures: The chapter right before this one, and the debut of nearly the whole cast seen here. Lucy already ties on her ribbon there without a word of explanation.
• Left Behind: The full version of Lucy's lonely-childhood backstory. Its kindergarten flashback shows Lucy crashing the girls' princess game with a toy car, the same habit that flattened the doll here.
• December: The gaming rivalry resurfaces much later, in the middle of Mike and Lucy's estrangement. This time Lucy wins, and the two reminisce about how much she practiced to get there.
• Blurry Memories: Blur's origin chapter, explaining his amnesia, his name, and how he ended up living with Mike.