Angels: December 5-10, 2005
May 12, 2012 ~ 27 Comments
This strip ended up too wordy because I couldn’t bear to trim Dave’s line in the last panel. Looking at it now, it was totally worth it.
Also, all of Seth’s portentous demon-hunter dialogue cracks me up. Who else likes Demon Hunter Seth? He is one of my absolute favorites.
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This strip kind of sums up my feelings about the “Demons” and “Angels” storylines; I felt like they got too convoluted and wrapped up in arbitrary rules and plot. But I guess it’s all worth it for Caliban referring to his human body as a “monkey suit.”
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I don’t think I started this storyline with the idea of Mell being assumed into Heaven, but once she showed up it sort of started going that way.
Caliban, as a demon, continues to be disdainful of Dave’s low-pressure quasi-religion. He’s really more of a Catholic concept.
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“Foob” was made-up slang in the comic strip For Better or For Worse. If I remember correctly, it’s a portmanteau of “fool” and “boob.” I love invented slang, the less cool the better. I also used the FBOFW line “She’s a gig, she’s roadside, man” in Smithson.
Caliban’s head is too small in the second panel. This is one of those cases where it really bugs me because otherwise the strip is practically perfect in every way, like Mary Poppins.
You know, I did some nice artwork for this storyline. Drawing angels is flippin’ fun. Also, I’m sure I’m the only person who cares about this kind of thing, but I started sometimes drawing Mell with her hair swept back from her forehead, as in the first panel here, just for variety. I ended up liking that design a lot.
This strip is a callback to the Thursday strip from this week, way back when. I like how unfazed Dave is by all this. He really has come a long way.
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Seth (and everyone else completely failing to be impressed by him) is great. Ordinarily I would say that doing something you know is good is its own reward, but I am not certain Seth would be with me on that.
Still, my pick for favorite line in this strip is the bit about the Triscuits.
There’s this old phrase that goes, “evil cannot comprehend good.” Would the seraph’s insistence on pulling someone to heaven count as “pure good cannot comprehend normalcy?”
Ook. Ook.
Celestia knows I love the *concept* of Angels; but in reality (or at least my particular view of Christian theology), they can be such dicks…
This has got to be the farthest anyone’s ever gone to prevent her boyfriend from spending time with his ex.
Similarly, when Andrew Carnegie said to Mark Twain that America is a Christian nation, he replied “So is Hell.”
I never noticed before that the broken windows in panel 3 form a heart shape behind Mell. That’s so romantic—please tell me it was deliberate. To subvert Man of La Mancha, is she willing to march into Heavan for a hellacious cause?
tune: “The Impossible Dream,” Mitch Leight and Joe Darion, Man of La Mancha. 1965
To Mell, it’s an obvious choice
To Hell she went, and was tossed out
For Caliban, she’ll take this burden
She knows she’ll be back, without doubt
Too late, almost, ’cause Ariel
Can’t wait to get off of this plane
She’d take someone random to Heaven
To think, she’s importing such pain!
This is Mell’s quest
To Heaven she’ll go
So Caliban can stay,
Monkey-suited, below
She’ll wreak havoc indeed
There’s no if, ands, or buts
Later on we will even find out
She kicked God in the nuts!
For we know, that wherever Mell goes
They’ll say “Heaven forfend!”
Once the mayhem has ceased she’ll return
To her British boyfriend
And Caliban watches her go
As he mocks Unitarian Dave
Her sacrifice will not be wasted
For back down from Heaven she’ll come
To goink with the love that she saved!
I’m really enjoying the auto-rebooted webcomic. It’s a meta-webcomic!
Love the third panel! I never saw the heart motif before. Cool!
Wednesday:
What I like about this strip, apart from this sharp twist, is that apparently this calamity has gone on for so long that it’s past sunrise already. What a strange dawn they have reached.
(Silent penultimate panels: 47.)
This is what I get for going to bed early … Kay beats me to the good tunes. Well done, Kay!
(TUNE: “Highway To Hell”, AC/DC)
Gaming night … D&D …
Freddy, Eric, and also Dave!
Iris said, “Can you see
What is wrong with the microwave?”
Angels come! Seraph said,
“One of you must to Heaven go!”
Gamers thought they were dead,
When the girl with the guns said, “Yo …”
We’re saying bye-bye to Mell!
Goin’ with Ariel!
She sure was swell …
We’re saying bye-bye to Mell!
I don’t know if it counts, but there’s two whole chapters in Leviticus (4–5) about the sacrifice of atonement. For an individual sin, it’s an adult female goat. Was that a sly, intentional reference or justa happy accident?
I know about this stuff, because it was the parsha for my bar mitzvah, the first five chapters of Leviticus. Do you have any idea how hard it is to write a sermon relating animal sacrifice to modern life?
His head is too small. Now I am damaged, and can see nothing else 🙁
It’s like when my friend pointed out my favorite wine had a vegetal aftertaste.
Thursday:
In today’s strip Mell parlays her familiarity with action movie sacrifice farewell scenes into a show of actual affection. She can emotionally express herself much easier through a veneer of grandiosity, without having to surrender any dignity or vulnerability.
She is definitely the most masculine character in the entire webcomic, that woman.
His head is smaller ’cause Mell is sucking all the air out of it. So, in a way, she’s “inspiring” him. And she’s about to “expire”.
Would an impromptu monster hunt count as a date for these two? ‘Cause that way I could make a pun about an “expiration daaaawwww, forget it.
The difference, I think, being that Caliban’s modest aspirations in life aren’t presented as Reason #1 that Mel should fall for him, and his moral failings are funny, not creepy.Not that I’m still bilious over For Better or for Worse or anything.
Things kinda went south in those last few years, didn’t they?
I figuered Foob = Fool + n00b. Works for me.
Heh.
Friday:
SPPs: 48. Actually, permanently eliminating the indestructible comic-relief third cast member by divine means, at this point in the webcomic’s run, is by no means an empty threat. This dearth of SPPs bestows an uncommon measure of theatrical weight to these proceedings.
I have to remember to say “yeah-huh” more often when dealing with authority figures.
Also, Mell should name her first kid, “Meaven”. (“Murgatory”? )
“Heavens to Murgatory”? Works for me.
Only Mell Kelly could call an Angel “chickie” and not end up a scorch mark on the ground…
Saturday:
Ariel didn’t actually even flick Cal – she just flicked the air and he flew back.
ITYM “Friday”.
I looked at the Thursday strip, and didn’t see the callback. Then I looked at the strip below that one …
(TUNE: “Never On Sunday”, Manos Hadjidakis & Billy Towne)
Now when she has to deal with
Mell, saved from Hell, Ariel
Really isn’t pleased at all!
And there goes Caliban, a
Slight flick, a neat trick, and quite quick
He’s thrown against the wall!
And though I’m really not
Complainin’, to Shaenon, explainin’,
I’d say it to her face …
That it was really on a
Friday, a Friday, a Friday
When flicking first took place!
Rethinking the advantages of being in a mixed-case comic now, huh, Caliban?