Hey, folks. As always, I love to hear your comments on the comic! Thanks for chiming in.
And also — These last few weeks, I’ve been encouraging y’all to talk here about your personal ghost stories, and about your beliefs about ghosts, ghost hunting TV shows, etc. So if you’re interested in that, check the comments over the last few weeks for anything you’ve missed, and keep the conversation going here!
I used to watch Ghost Hunters when it first came on. Then I kinda got the feeling a lot of things were staged/guided by the hand of the producer. It didn’t matter though since any time they found anything, Fatman would just say “It was a bug.”
Though to be fair, those guys did get really excited about “orbs.”
Great comic! It’s become a favorite of mine here on Dumm. :)
While in high school I somehow I managed to convince my grandparents to let me take a bunch of friends to their remote mountain cabin for the weekend, just us no adults. It was a really fun trip but there was this once incident that I will never forget:
At the end of our first night, there was this one particularly creepy room which we all decided to sleep in together. I had friends in the bunk beds, on the floor, and I shared a normal bed with my pal Rew. On the wall there was this painting of a little girl sleeping with the words “Mighty like a Rose” scrawled underneath. We laughed and teased each other about how creepy it was, flipped the light off and started to settle into bed.
Drifting off to sleep, I suddenly felt the bottom right corner of the bed start to push down- I could hear the crunching of the springs and everything. And it wasn’t just me who felt it, Rew did too. It felt like someone was sitting there.
At first I thought it was our friend Ryan whose kind of an asshole and a prankster.
The room was pitch black, we couldn’t see anything.
“Ryan?”
We were answered back with nothing but the breathing of our sleeping friends, and someone was still sitting on our bed.
“Ryan fuck off!”
Rew sat up in bed now and threw out his arms to give whoever was sitting there an annoyed whack. He was confused by his lack of contact and we were both defiantly alarmed now, I rolled off the bed and threw on the lights really fast.
Nothing, everyone was sleeping. Our suspect Ryan was asleep in the top bunk, it couldn’t have been him.
“Hey Ryan!?”
Nothing but snores from him. Some people were starting to wake up now cause of the light so we turned it off and crawled back under the covers.
“You felt that too right?”
“yeah”
I laid there wide awake for a while before eventually drifting off to sleep again. There were no other incidents after this. I know its not the most exciting “ghost story”,feeling something sit on your bed, but I don’t think I will ever forget that sensation my friend and I both experienced and I’m not really sure how it can be explained.
I’m pretty skeptical about most stories of people’s encounters with stuff like this, because the human brain is just so fallible. I mentioned infra-sound in an earlier comments section, and there’s also just weirdness with, like … the part of your brain that keeps track of your position can get mixed up, which I think might often be the cause of ghost sightings. The person thinks, I saw a person on the other side of the room!, but it was really their brain representing their own body on the other side of the room, because of a momentary mental malfunction, which caused them to get confused about where they were, and to then create a picture of someone, somewhere, to try and make it right. It’s like an out-of-body experience, where you just don’t recognize yourself, so you think someone else is there.
So, because of ideas like this, most ghosts can be explained away as hallucinations or mistakes the brain makes, etc. BUT, it’s when TWO OR MORE people experience something at the same time that it gets REALLY interesting. Because NOW what the heck is it?!
She’s not exactly the brightest bulb in the box, is she?
I think it’s hilarious how all these unlikable little runts eventually meet women that totally have the hots for them… and then some of these guys remain completely oblivious to it. Especially Onion Puss, he’s got a vibe going that somehow reminds me of Cerebus.
The first phonebook is radically different from what comes after it, or so I heard. I read the fifth and sixth volume, in which Cerebus is a lovesick live-in houseguest to the love of his life and her husband, who happens to be the nicest guy on earth. This is the kind of situation that *could* happen to a Zoo Laffs character, though not necessarily to Onion Puss, who is too much of a jerk anyway. Also, Cerebus is far more stoic.
uh, he may be serious about curling up and crying so I hope she realizes what she’s getting into with him. Personally, being like that has never helped me out in the few relationships I’ve been in. As for ghost shows, I get there’s a certain amount of fakery to it, but man, do they go into some creepy places. I’ve always liked ghost adventures over ghost hunters. GH feels over rehearsed and over populated by comparison. The douchiness runs high in GA, but they seem to get better and more convincing results.
So your depression is a detriment to your love life? Do go on! (Just be warned, you might appear as a basset hound in a future comic strip, ha.)
I’ve never watched Ghost Hunters for more than a couple minutes, but yeah, it always seemed like they were going nuts over things that we, the audience, could not hear. Ghost Adventures, however, has lots of great EVP’s and stuff like that. Dramatically compelling stuff, to the point where you think, either these guys are REALLY hoaxing the hell out of this, or they REALLY just recorded something very ghostish. And the guys on that show have grown on me over time, as reality show people will, to the point where you eventually feel like you’re watching something your friends made.
Awesome, Garrison, I love basset hounds too! Boy, i don’t know if my persona would translate well as a fun character, In fact, folks might get annoyed with him/me pretty quick. In my own life, I’d pretty much given up on the prospect of being in a relationship since high-school. I am very much the defeatist type: shallow, lazy, arrogant, and at times a compulsive liar. If I’m sitting in a crowded place, I’m usually drawing. Sometimes i catch a glimpse of pretty girls and I do everything i can to remain inconspicuous, (mostly fantasy/sci-fi character and story ideas) and consciously averting my eyes. “c’est la vie” often comes to mind when I want to excuse myself from these often overwhelming emotional obstacles. Oddly enough, I was partly able to get over my fear by forcing myself to draw people when they aren’t paying attention (walking/running past and or at a distance so that it’s not too creepy). It’s the best way for me to get over what I feel is shameless voyeurism as a means to get better at figures and also it’s a fun challenge as they are usually in constant motion. Anyway, thanks for the great comic series, and I also agree about the way GA handles their show with more personality, it’s a more effective hook than the deadpan style of GH.
>> shallow, lazy, arrogant, and at times a compulsive liar.
You sound hilariously awful!
You should take up caricatures. I eschewed it for most of my life, but now I’m starting to feel like it should be required training for all cartoonists. I used to think it was the lowest of the cartoon art forms, but I’m beginning to think it’s the highest.
I like the “home owner” stuff, reminds me of the Chris Rock “Women can’t go backwards in Lifestyle” sketch. But why oh why does she have Skeletor lips ? :(
I can see “Skeletor lips” myself, because the hatch shading is flat straight across the lips making a Halloween painted skull teeth effect. A side effect of the minimal line clutter your style has. Or you just see shaded lips, your brain kinda tunes in either-or like “is it a vase, or two faces” deal.
As for ghosts. I grew up in the middle of the mojave desert. One thing a dark midnight desert is good for is creepy stuff. Yet its all explainable one way or another. I think its just a human element to go skitzo over happenings beyond your normal in which one is simply ignorant to how such things could take place. Personally, I think ghosts are human error and collective obsessional behavior.
Yes, that’s what I meant, thank you for phrasing it so nicely :)
Also, I think we all want to see sex scenes, but It would damage the Dumm identity. Why not draw a clean version for the next cartoon and a naughty version and offer it for sale? A webcomic named SoreThumbs did that. Else it’s just cocktease to no end.
You all want to see sex scenes?! I think it might just be you. Have you taken a poll?
I like keeping Zoo Laffs PG-13ish (but maybe pushing the edge here and there). Of course, if I really knew there was a way to turn it into a profit-making venture, I might actually consider it. I could draw the occasional quadruple-X bestiality comic; why not? Anybody who’d buy that kind of thing for $6, email me — cgarrison [at] bham.rr.com — with “FAN SERVICE” in the subject line. If I get a thousand responses or something, I’ll think about it. But I’m pretty sure I’ll get about two emails about this.
HA! Called it! i knew that she would be into him, despite how lame he seems to be, and that onion puss would be completly oblivious to it and sitll go after that other girl :) lol
Damn shes curvy. Onionpuss should GO FER IT.
You can’t fix him.
Um, I don’t think he was joking…
Aaaahh yeah onionpuss go for her
I lol’d at her tits hanging over the edge of the panel. Well played!
Hey, folks. As always, I love to hear your comments on the comic! Thanks for chiming in.
And also — These last few weeks, I’ve been encouraging y’all to talk here about your personal ghost stories, and about your beliefs about ghosts, ghost hunting TV shows, etc. So if you’re interested in that, check the comments over the last few weeks for anything you’ve missed, and keep the conversation going here!
I used to watch Ghost Hunters when it first came on. Then I kinda got the feeling a lot of things were staged/guided by the hand of the producer. It didn’t matter though since any time they found anything, Fatman would just say “It was a bug.”
Though to be fair, those guys did get really excited about “orbs.”
Great comic! It’s become a favorite of mine here on Dumm. :)
While in high school I somehow I managed to convince my grandparents to let me take a bunch of friends to their remote mountain cabin for the weekend, just us no adults. It was a really fun trip but there was this once incident that I will never forget:
At the end of our first night, there was this one particularly creepy room which we all decided to sleep in together. I had friends in the bunk beds, on the floor, and I shared a normal bed with my pal Rew. On the wall there was this painting of a little girl sleeping with the words “Mighty like a Rose” scrawled underneath. We laughed and teased each other about how creepy it was, flipped the light off and started to settle into bed.
Drifting off to sleep, I suddenly felt the bottom right corner of the bed start to push down- I could hear the crunching of the springs and everything. And it wasn’t just me who felt it, Rew did too. It felt like someone was sitting there.
At first I thought it was our friend Ryan whose kind of an asshole and a prankster.
The room was pitch black, we couldn’t see anything.
“Ryan?”
We were answered back with nothing but the breathing of our sleeping friends, and someone was still sitting on our bed.
“Ryan fuck off!”
Rew sat up in bed now and threw out his arms to give whoever was sitting there an annoyed whack. He was confused by his lack of contact and we were both defiantly alarmed now, I rolled off the bed and threw on the lights really fast.
Nothing, everyone was sleeping. Our suspect Ryan was asleep in the top bunk, it couldn’t have been him.
“Hey Ryan!?”
Nothing but snores from him. Some people were starting to wake up now cause of the light so we turned it off and crawled back under the covers.
“You felt that too right?”
“yeah”
I laid there wide awake for a while before eventually drifting off to sleep again. There were no other incidents after this. I know its not the most exciting “ghost story”,feeling something sit on your bed, but I don’t think I will ever forget that sensation my friend and I both experienced and I’m not really sure how it can be explained.
Fantastic story, Pumpkin!
I’m pretty skeptical about most stories of people’s encounters with stuff like this, because the human brain is just so fallible. I mentioned infra-sound in an earlier comments section, and there’s also just weirdness with, like … the part of your brain that keeps track of your position can get mixed up, which I think might often be the cause of ghost sightings. The person thinks, I saw a person on the other side of the room!, but it was really their brain representing their own body on the other side of the room, because of a momentary mental malfunction, which caused them to get confused about where they were, and to then create a picture of someone, somewhere, to try and make it right. It’s like an out-of-body experience, where you just don’t recognize yourself, so you think someone else is there.
So, because of ideas like this, most ghosts can be explained away as hallucinations or mistakes the brain makes, etc. BUT, it’s when TWO OR MORE people experience something at the same time that it gets REALLY interesting. Because NOW what the heck is it?!
She’s not exactly the brightest bulb in the box, is she?
I think it’s hilarious how all these unlikable little runts eventually meet women that totally have the hots for them… and then some of these guys remain completely oblivious to it. Especially Onion Puss, he’s got a vibe going that somehow reminds me of Cerebus.
Cerebus, hmm. Yes, maybe I could cast Onion Puss in a geopolitical barbarian saga that’s as thick as 12 phonebooks. I think it could work!
(I like Cerebus, in theory, but I don’t think I actually LIKE like it. Although, I’ve only read the first phonebook, so … )
The first phonebook is radically different from what comes after it, or so I heard. I read the fifth and sixth volume, in which Cerebus is a lovesick live-in houseguest to the love of his life and her husband, who happens to be the nicest guy on earth. This is the kind of situation that *could* happen to a Zoo Laffs character, though not necessarily to Onion Puss, who is too much of a jerk anyway. Also, Cerebus is far more stoic.
uh, he may be serious about curling up and crying so I hope she realizes what she’s getting into with him. Personally, being like that has never helped me out in the few relationships I’ve been in. As for ghost shows, I get there’s a certain amount of fakery to it, but man, do they go into some creepy places. I’ve always liked ghost adventures over ghost hunters. GH feels over rehearsed and over populated by comparison. The douchiness runs high in GA, but they seem to get better and more convincing results.
So your depression is a detriment to your love life? Do go on! (Just be warned, you might appear as a basset hound in a future comic strip, ha.)
I’ve never watched Ghost Hunters for more than a couple minutes, but yeah, it always seemed like they were going nuts over things that we, the audience, could not hear. Ghost Adventures, however, has lots of great EVP’s and stuff like that. Dramatically compelling stuff, to the point where you think, either these guys are REALLY hoaxing the hell out of this, or they REALLY just recorded something very ghostish. And the guys on that show have grown on me over time, as reality show people will, to the point where you eventually feel like you’re watching something your friends made.
Awesome, Garrison, I love basset hounds too! Boy, i don’t know if my persona would translate well as a fun character, In fact, folks might get annoyed with him/me pretty quick. In my own life, I’d pretty much given up on the prospect of being in a relationship since high-school. I am very much the defeatist type: shallow, lazy, arrogant, and at times a compulsive liar. If I’m sitting in a crowded place, I’m usually drawing. Sometimes i catch a glimpse of pretty girls and I do everything i can to remain inconspicuous, (mostly fantasy/sci-fi character and story ideas) and consciously averting my eyes. “c’est la vie” often comes to mind when I want to excuse myself from these often overwhelming emotional obstacles. Oddly enough, I was partly able to get over my fear by forcing myself to draw people when they aren’t paying attention (walking/running past and or at a distance so that it’s not too creepy). It’s the best way for me to get over what I feel is shameless voyeurism as a means to get better at figures and also it’s a fun challenge as they are usually in constant motion. Anyway, thanks for the great comic series, and I also agree about the way GA handles their show with more personality, it’s a more effective hook than the deadpan style of GH.
>> shallow, lazy, arrogant, and at times a compulsive liar.
You sound hilariously awful!
You should take up caricatures. I eschewed it for most of my life, but now I’m starting to feel like it should be required training for all cartoonists. I used to think it was the lowest of the cartoon art forms, but I’m beginning to think it’s the highest.
He’s a pussy for crying in the bathroom all day..XD
It’s tough being a … whatever he is.
This is really cool, I like the fact that he’s got a pke meter. I also like when she stats laughing he’s totally confused.
I like the “home owner” stuff, reminds me of the Chris Rock “Women can’t go backwards in Lifestyle” sketch. But why oh why does she have Skeletor lips ? :(
I’m not following you on the Skeletor thing … since he doesn’t have lips. ???
I can see “Skeletor lips” myself, because the hatch shading is flat straight across the lips making a Halloween painted skull teeth effect. A side effect of the minimal line clutter your style has. Or you just see shaded lips, your brain kinda tunes in either-or like “is it a vase, or two faces” deal.
As for ghosts. I grew up in the middle of the mojave desert. One thing a dark midnight desert is good for is creepy stuff. Yet its all explainable one way or another. I think its just a human element to go skitzo over happenings beyond your normal in which one is simply ignorant to how such things could take place. Personally, I think ghosts are human error and collective obsessional behavior.
I guess the hatching does kinda look toothy in some panels. I’ll try to avoid that in future strips, if I can figure out how.
>> Personally, I think ghosts are human error and collective obsessional behavior.
You might be right. Doggone it.
Yes, that’s what I meant, thank you for phrasing it so nicely :)
Also, I think we all want to see sex scenes, but It would damage the Dumm identity. Why not draw a clean version for the next cartoon and a naughty version and offer it for sale? A webcomic named SoreThumbs did that. Else it’s just cocktease to no end.
You all want to see sex scenes?! I think it might just be you. Have you taken a poll?
I like keeping Zoo Laffs PG-13ish (but maybe pushing the edge here and there). Of course, if I really knew there was a way to turn it into a profit-making venture, I might actually consider it. I could draw the occasional quadruple-X bestiality comic; why not? Anybody who’d buy that kind of thing for $6, email me — cgarrison [at] bham.rr.com — with “FAN SERVICE” in the subject line. If I get a thousand responses or something, I’ll think about it. But I’m pretty sure I’ll get about two emails about this.
HA! Called it! i knew that she would be into him, despite how lame he seems to be, and that onion puss would be completly oblivious to it and sitll go after that other girl :) lol
I think there are still some surprises coming in this story. (but please keep your guesses to yourself, lest you ruin it for everybody else!)
I know I’ve already said it, but I think you draw awesome girls. I’m loving this story so far.
Thanks a million, Katie! But I hope you know, you are the best ever.
Okay, thanks for reading. Come back next week for more adventures!
he’s none too subtle with that flashlight
*ahem* Dat Ass!