Aaaaaand we’re back on schedule with a gritty tale of crime and unicycles!

I think I decided these guys were gangsters because my wife bought me the Warner Bros. “Gangsters” collection for my birthday a couple of weeks ago, and while I haven’t yet had time to watch it, I’ve had Cagney on the brain ever since.  This guy seems to be attempting Cagney’s sneer, but the way his friends are looking at him somehow suggested to me that he was describing something fanciful involving ponies and ice cream (or perhaps a grapefruit attack) rather than an armed robbery.  The story evolved from there.

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I suspect this chicken is supposed to just look bored, but to me it looks like it’s contemplating acts of unspeakable darkness, so that’s the direction I went with here.

This is the first anthropomorphized animal in my run on this strip (not counting the horse in “Buffalo Soldier,” which had an explanation, albeit a stupid one.)  I had to make the chicken the narrator because the thought bubbles were ridiculously unruly given the layout of the art.

PLUGGERY:  I recently recorded a sketch comedy album with three other comedy musician-type people (all of whom have had the #1 song of the year on the Dr. Demento show at some point in the last decade) and it’s now available from www.cirquedusowhat.net!  We still have a handful of pre-order bonus discs available, first-come, first-serve.  For those of you who hate shiny media, it’ll be on iTunes/Amazon/CDBaby/etc. in a few weeks.

Oh, and MarsCon was awesome.   It’s also the reason this strip is a day late.  Turns out Minneapolis is just as far from upstate NY as it’s ever been.  Somebody needs to fix that.

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Maybe I’m trying to make a point here by reversing gender stereotypes, maybe I’m enjoying trying to conjure images of off-panel overweight society-types scowling and flapping their jowls with contempt, or maybe I’m just testing the waters of my mostly-inherited audience to see whether I can get away with throwing a term like “stinktunnel” out there every couple of months.  Maybe it’s some combination of the three.  All I can say for sure is that as soon as I saw this picture, for whatever reason I immediately heard locker room talk.  These flapper girls just look like they’re up to something.

Almost went with “stinkchunnel,” incidentally.  My wife talked me out of it.

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Went with the obvious artwork observation for this one (because, y’know, how could you NOT?) and endeavored to transplant it into what I hope is an unexpected setting.  I originally had a whole complex plot around this which managed to ignore the legless horse for two whole panels, but decided to simplify and just acknowledge the horseapiller in the room right off the bat.

Sorry this one’s going up a few hours late…I actually had it ready to go but fell asleep before I got a chance to post it.  Why?  Because I’ve been going nuts trying to get ready for MarsCon in Bloomington, MN this weekend!  I’ll be performing (as Worm Quartet) along with other comedy music artists such as Rob Balder, Shaffer the Darklord, the great Luke Ski, the Nick Atoms, Devo Spice, The Gothsicles, Steve Goodie, Power Salad, and a bunch more people.  Non-musical guests of honor include Gwynyth Walsh, John Garner, and Loretta McKibben!  MarsCon is always a fun time, and this year Rob’s even gonna have an Erfworld party room on the 13th floor.  Should be a blast.

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I would not be at all surprised if I were to discover that women, or at least a reasonable subsection of women from my past, really think like this.  If I could harness the power of retroactively-discovered nookie potential and use it for fuel, I’d totally be able to at least drive to work a couple of times.  It’s nice to discover that you weren’t quite the loser you thought you were in high school / college / whatever, but only for values of “nice” diluted by bitterness and frustration.

On a completely different note, welcome to my first attempt at thought balloons!  I’m not at all happy with how these ones look, so we’ll see if I can find some way to get better-looking ones in Photoshop next time.  Or just avoid using them from now on.

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I’ve had this idea in my head for a while, but couldn’t find a decent clip art picture of drinking frat boys.  Ultimately realized no picture of that sort would really work anyway, since I’d be unlikely to find something with the right kind of frat boys wearing the right kind of expression holding the right type of drink and gathered around something resembling a pile of coupons.  So I backed up and found a piece of clip art that leaves all that to the description and the imagination, and sets the scene from the outside.

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This is based on a conversation I had with a co-worker who asked me how I got the Pac-Man “Power Up” energy drink I proudly display in my meager cubicle.  I managed to ramble on for quite a while about the evolution of commerce before said co-worker walked away.  I wasn’t as clever as the dapper gentleman in this strip, but one of the great things about having a creative outlet like this is that you can revisit your “I should’ve said” moments to at least some degree.

Not that I stay up nights thinking of ways I can better aggravate my co-workers.

Usually.

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That other guy who used to do this strip, Bob something I think, tended to limit the strips that just blatantly mocked the art (though when he did it, he did it well.)  I’m unlikely to impose any such limit on myself, because these are just too much fun.  When I saw this piece of clip art, the shapes on the suitcase just jumped out at me.  I couldn’t stop giggling when I was writing this thing.

I’ll mention randomly at this point that my one-man comedy synth-punk band, Worm Quartet, will be playing the Bug Jar in Rochester, NY on February 24th.  Come on out!

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Another strip pulled from my own life…my wife recently pointed out some type of cheese that was aged in a cave, the response just came out, and I realized I had a recipe for fitting a “your mom” joke on PartiallyClips.  I had to research both cheese AND humor to bring this bit of cheesy humor to life (eh?  Eh?)

Incidentally, while this is hardly the first PartiallyClips to feature a French waiter, I believe it’s the first to feature one who looks like a friggin’ game show host.

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Watching my son being born was amazing.  Watching him learn to walk was amazing.  Watching him learn to read and write has been amazing.  Watching him get better at video games has been downright frightening.  I figure he’ll be handing my ass to me in Mario Kart within a month or so, and I’m hoping my ego is sufficient to allow me to be proud of him.

My Dad, who I beat regularly at Pac-Man back in the day, thinks this is hysterical.

This strip is inspired by a Twitter conversation with a friend of mine who’s going through a very similar phase with his kids.

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