It may be important to keep in mind that the holes to make it a bowling ball are relatively close together and the skull kind of floated in said ball, so it could be looking any direction relative to said holes. As such, a single 2-D image of a ball with a skull in it which doesn’t clearly feature said holes could simply be of the ball oriented so the holes are on the other side.
Of course, it’s possible I could be thinking of an entirely different clear bowling ball with a skull in it. I don’t keep up enough with pop culture to know there isn’t another one.
Most likely we’re not thinking about this specific magic skull-filled crystal bowling ball, but I agree that the holes should be as hidden as possible from this view. Putting the holes on the eyes might work but it would be ugly and not nice to the skull.
I would put the holes behind, and slightly under the skull, so when I’m lining up the shot, the skull can see where it needs to go. I don’t remember if that’s what “The Bowler” did.
Going by images of her holding it, Carmine the Bowler’s ball (Bowler II being his daughter, Carol) appears to have its grip points (whether holes or simply divots, which is all some of the professionals need/use) roughly under his jaw (for the fingers) and at the cranial entry point for the spinal cord (for the thumb). 😀
“Stop it! Now, look! No one is to blast anyone until I blow this whistle! Do you understand?! Even, and I want to make this absolutely clear, even if they do say ‘alakabla’–” (Fusilade of destructive firepower)
Or it’s to disguise the actual word that triggers it, so add in some parts to ‘blammo’ that’s the trigger to make it more difficult for people to use it.
If he’d said “self-respecting” instead of “actual” he wouldn’t have been contradicted in the next frame, but also it might have been more accurate. Notice that while the first use required “abracablammo” (as noted above), subsequent blasts apparently only required gestures or intent (including one accidental misfire), and now Cecil triggered it with “alakablammo”. Perhaps the magic staff is just another bored, self-aware magic item waiting for excuses to fire, without being too picky about the language involved.
Interesting choice of spelling. So, the summoning word some kind of mashup of the Fawcett Comics character and Hanna-Barbera’s most jovial genie? I would watch that show/read that book.
“I am…Captain Shazzan! Ho-ho-ho-HO!”
Maybe the two lost kids could turn into Captain Shazzan, Jr. and Nancy Shazzan? Do some chimerical blend thing with Talky Tawny and Kaboobie and have the children ride around on a winged tiger when they aren’t powered up?
There’s a fair few Captain marvel villains who’d fit it Toth’s animated fever dream nicely. When Mister Mind looks kind of run of the mill you know you’re someplace weird.
Alternately, I suppose “Shazzan” could just be regular Captain Marvel with an extra dose of Zeus and…I don’t know, Neptune swapped in for Mercury? Lose the super speed and gain stronger thunderbolts and the ability to talk to fish? There are a *lot* of Greco-Roman deities and heroes, I’m kind of surprised Billy’s never experimented with this idea… 🙂
Holy Crap! A new page!!
Thanks, Aaron!
Remember, you are in a magic item shop. Be prepared for the items to be dumb.
More specifically, they are in an actual magic shop run by 12 year olds.
There’s no limit to the possible dumb.
Oh, it’s not dead! Today my daily check for updates is rewarded.
This is why RSS aggregators are useful things. (Good for “The Order of the Stick”, too.)
Love my RSS feed!
OOTS also puts all updates on twitter so you can just turn on notifs for that
Oof, but that requires you to be on twitter.
Easiest is checking the Twitter feed on the right. Updates are usually prominently mentioned.
Huzzah!!! Thank you Aaron!!
This is why we keep coming back!!!
Skull ball… I don’t see finger holes making it a bowling ball. There is probably a few other things this can be a reference to.
It may be important to keep in mind that the holes to make it a bowling ball are relatively close together and the skull kind of floated in said ball, so it could be looking any direction relative to said holes. As such, a single 2-D image of a ball with a skull in it which doesn’t clearly feature said holes could simply be of the ball oriented so the holes are on the other side.
Of course, it’s possible I could be thinking of an entirely different clear bowling ball with a skull in it. I don’t keep up enough with pop culture to know there isn’t another one.
Most likely we’re not thinking about this specific magic skull-filled crystal bowling ball, but I agree that the holes should be as hidden as possible from this view. Putting the holes on the eyes might work but it would be ugly and not nice to the skull.
I would put the holes behind, and slightly under the skull, so when I’m lining up the shot, the skull can see where it needs to go. I don’t remember if that’s what “The Bowler” did.
Main reference would be the movie “Mystery Men,” but I don’t remember if that ball had holes in it or not.
Going by images of her holding it, Carmine the Bowler’s ball (Bowler II being his daughter, Carol) appears to have its grip points (whether holes or simply divots, which is all some of the professionals need/use) roughly under his jaw (for the fingers) and at the cranial entry point for the spinal cord (for the thumb). 😀
“No ACTUAL magic staff would go off if you said alakablamo!”
You sure about that?
To be fair, she actually said “abracablammo”, not “alakablammo”. http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2010-10-10/
“Stop it! Now, look! No one is to blast anyone until I blow this whistle! Do you understand?! Even, and I want to make this absolutely clear, even if they do say ‘alakabla’–” (Fusilade of destructive firepower)
As a fix-up, perhaps the staff will perform different actions if given different commands, as long as the commands all end in “-blammo!”
I note that “abracablammo!” resulted in a light blue sphere shooting out, while “alakablammo!” seems to have resulted in . . . something else?
Spider-in-a-top-hat-blammo!
/obscure reference
Perhaps even “blammo” can be replaced to infer other actions. Abracazap for lightning or alakazoom to speed something up.
“Hocuskadabra! Allakapocus! Walla Walla Washington! Newport News!”
Somewhere, a vampire sheds a tear…
Or it’s to disguise the actual word that triggers it, so add in some parts to ‘blammo’ that’s the trigger to make it more difficult for people to use it.
So just “akablammo” would probably work, but it’s not as easy to remember.
If he’d said “self-respecting” instead of “actual” he wouldn’t have been contradicted in the next frame, but also it might have been more accurate. Notice that while the first use required “abracablammo” (as noted above), subsequent blasts apparently only required gestures or intent (including one accidental misfire), and now Cecil triggered it with “alakablammo”. Perhaps the magic staff is just another bored, self-aware magic item waiting for excuses to fire, without being too picky about the language involved.
Thank you for the update!
Just goes to show you should never give up hope on a comic that the creator hasn’t posted as on hiatus or completed.
Cecil, you really should know better by now.
An update?!? It’s a miracle! If I pray for more, will it continue?
Thank you, Aaron. This is a great page. I hope the comic isn’t ending anytime soon.
…shazzam.
Interesting choice of spelling. So, the summoning word some kind of mashup of the Fawcett Comics character and Hanna-Barbera’s most jovial genie? I would watch that show/read that book.
“I am…Captain Shazzan! Ho-ho-ho-HO!”
Maybe the two lost kids could turn into Captain Shazzan, Jr. and Nancy Shazzan? Do some chimerical blend thing with Talky Tawny and Kaboobie and have the children ride around on a winged tiger when they aren’t powered up?
There’s a fair few Captain marvel villains who’d fit it Toth’s animated fever dream nicely. When Mister Mind looks kind of run of the mill you know you’re someplace weird.
Alternately, I suppose “Shazzan” could just be regular Captain Marvel with an extra dose of Zeus and…I don’t know, Neptune swapped in for Mercury? Lose the super speed and gain stronger thunderbolts and the ability to talk to fish? There are a *lot* of Greco-Roman deities and heroes, I’m kind of surprised Billy’s never experimented with this idea… 🙂
Second Z would be Zephyr, to keep the speed. N could be Nox, for darkness powers.
Or Nike for Victory. Zephyr’s a good one.
I think the Management is going to be teed off royally!
That depends on what that blast did. Punching holes in reality? Meh. Punching holes in the merchandise? Seriously ticked.
By the time this ends, I bet that staff will be in Cecil’s collection.
Still need to update the operatives in the garage/basement. Last we saw they were stealing a vehicle.