Dresden Codak pretty much takes the turn we were expecting … the end of the world. The current panel is ominously titled “Hob 25 — And That’s That.” (Link may be Not Safe For Work due to naked views of Kimiko’s butt and some boobage. I also expect this link to float to the top of one of my most clicked links on this site.) Of course, this being Dresden Codak, I fully expect the brave new world mentioned at the end of the strip to be some sort of magical fusion of man and machine. A transhumanist paradise (as alluded to two years ago in “Epilogue“).

So… does this remind anyone of Neon Genesis Evangelion? Not just how the end of the world is instigated by some cute girl who develops godlike powers. Or how everyone’s absorbed into a sort of entropy that gives birth to a new world (a theme that was also reiterated in Evangelion‘s close cousin in anime, RahXephon). How about how Dresden Codak, like Evangelion, started out a sort of a breezy saga with somewhat cerebral anecdotes into an oppresively serious storyline with cosmic aspirations?

Also, it’s kinda weird that this is the second major storyline in webcomics to touch on the end of the world. In March of this year, Minus concluded with everyone in the world still dead. It was played off as a pleasant thing, perhaps even better than life as a living person. Yet, like the similar ending at the end of Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle, I couldn’t shake the eerie feeling of melancholy.

EDIT: Argh. Stupid differences in date notation. I wend back to check that strip, and I just noticed they were using the day/month/year convention. Minus actually concluded its storyline in July.