YES! THIS comic! Finally!
Okay, once and for all: There is no Randal. The first panel is Elliot sleepily and inexplicably referencing the movie Clerks.
Clerks is an indie movie with a whole lot of swearing and arguably objectionable content flung together in glorious black and white by Kevin Smith. I became aware of Kevin Smith as a result of many people comparing me to Silent Bob, a character in Smith’s movies who he portrays himself. This comparison was most commonly made while playing volleyball in gym class, of all places.
I wouldn’t say I was ever thought his movies were fantastic, but I was definitely a huge fan of Smith and his colleagues (yes, this does mean I like Ben Affleck), and that was enough to make me a big fan of his movies for a while. I’ve watched / listened to the commentary for his second movie, Mallrats, WAY more times than I’ve simply watched the movie. I’ve made a LOT of comics while listening to that DVD commentary.
When the Clerks animated series came out, I even wrote an ad for it on a dry erase board at school (prior to immediately feeing the room) because I didn’t feel it was being adequately advertised.
But I could go on. In short, “Randal” is a movie reference, and Elliot does not have a job to have days off from as of this comic.
Comic commentary added August 14