ricketyclick

Yeah, yeah, Edouard, baby, if you want center stage, you have to make your cue. You’re late.

And, cripes, man: you aren’t following your designated path, but The Big Too Easy is right on target:

Well, OK, “Freud” would be the next one, but of course, wrong sex alternation.

This won’t make sense to anyone not in my immediate family:

Frankly, it doesn’t make much sense even to me, but it’s got a platypus in it. A flying platypus, in fact.

Approach with caution: the platypus is the only poisonous mammal. It’s such a bizarre animal, that when the first type specimen pelts were sent to natural history museums, they were thought to be hoaxes.

They do not, however, have wings.

It is embarrassing not to know these things. (Although, to be fair, I’ve known this since grade school, and I’ve found plenty of other ways to embarrass myself.)

I don’t have a laptop, but I still think this is cool:

This is the adapter for Logitech’s VX Nano Cordless mouse. Its tiny profile reduces the risk that it will catch on something and either break off or crowbar your laptop open.

Via Fred Gallagher, who needs to be working on the comic, darn him.

Earlier, I referred to Irena Sendler, hero of the Holocaust, getting elbowed out of the Nobel Peace Prize by the Goreacle.

I missed this cartoon attached to the story at Flopping Aces:

I assume everyone here has already seen the latest from xkcd, right?

I shouldn’t have to link to it; I should just be able to assume that you have of course seen it, and incorporate it into the discussion with no more than the merest eyebrow flicker.

Right?

Because if you don’t get xkcd, I mean seriously get it, and religiously check for each and every brilliant diamond flake, I’m not sure we can be friends anymore. (Fine, exception for those with chronic, clinical cases of geekiness deficiency, but who still manage to somehow put up with me. Hi, Mom!)

Today’s punchline simply wouldn’t work if xkcd were done in a less…schematic style. Munroe is making very wise use of the few lines he allows himself. This is almost as pure as comic art gets. Next step, no dialog.

His ongoing use of the HTML ALT tag, to provide an extra bit of text on mouse-over, is nothing short of brilliant. He’s got his medium, simple as it is, down cold.

I’m gonna pretty much stop linking to it, because it’s just too damn tempting to simply become an xkcd mirror site.

Wow. Oh, wow.

Biggest news since Heller:

Agatha Heterodyne is about to prove her claim to Castle Heterodyne, or die in the attempt.

Hm, that’s ambiguous in an interesting way.

Let me clarify: She’s not just proving that she has a claim on the Castle, no no no. That would be boring.

She is about to attempt to prove to the Castle Itself, which has fallen into disrepair and is more than a little insane, that she is Its Mistress. (It is Castle Heterodyne speaking in the unattached dialog balloons with the wavy borders.)

If you have not been following this “Gaslamp Fantasy”, this may not make sense to you.

Your loss, toots.

If you hurry, you can try to catch up.

Here’s a character summary.

Here’s The Story So Far.

Here’s the very first comic.

Unlike far too many web comics, which tend to bog down, and to promise great revelations, only to snatch them away at the last moment, the Foglios have kept up the pace. Girl Genius has been a long, meandering, tale, illuminating many dark corners and hidden passages, but the Foglios have not engaged in gratuitous teasing, just to string the story out, and I believe they will not tease us now. Something great is about to happen.

Girl Genius may be the best web comic out there. Sumptuous art, wonderful characters, sly wit, stupendous story, and it updates reliably, every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, at 11:00 pm CDT, without fail, something very few web comics can say.

I’ve been following this story, in thrice-weekly installments, for about five years now, it’s about to pay off, and I couldn’t be happier.

Wow.

[I've pointed at Girl Genius before. I solemnly vow, if this is not a tease, and the Foglios do indeed put Agatha to the test, I will buy the mug for Perfect Coffee in gratitude. I already own most of the paper editions of the comic, save the current volume 6, and yeah, I'll bring my collection up to date as well. Yes, I see it will cost me more than twenty bucks. Trust me, the Girl Genius books are worth it, if you like this kind of thing at all. They're gorgeous.

[The only other web comic I buy the books for is Megatokyo, because Fred Gallagher, the artist, refuses to run a tip jar.]

From Errant Story, Poe’s fantasy online comic:

Ah, yes. Those who “move to the sound of the guns”. Bless them and keep them, as they keep all of us.

The “sheepdog” reference of my title comes from David Grossman’s essay,  “On Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs”.

Self-tagged with the coffee cup meme, via Ambulance Driver, where I also left a comment on my favorite beverages.

My favorite coffee mug art, from Christopher Baldwin’s comic Bruno:

Yes, yes, there’s lots of other mugs out there from comic strips I like better, or with political slogans I favor, or with funnier jokes. But this one actually has to do with coffee, and I love Baldwin’s art.

Here it is next to the mug I actually use, which is exactly the right size:

update:

Ah, I’ve been looking for this, and finally found it: another favorite coffee cartoon. I dearly want this on a mug:

From Mark Stanley’s wonderful comic, Freefall.

Now, this is what coffee should be like:

[click for full size] [source][ad for Heterodyne Spark Roast]

I…despair of explaining the context of this image. Here’s the machine that made the coffee this young man just took a sip of. The lady with the wrench is a “spark”, a genius mad scientist in a world where magic is crucial to technology. I cannot urge you strongly enough to start here and read the whole bizarre story. The phrase “steam punk”, stretched to tatters, might evoke something of the flavor of the Foglio’s world.

OMG: this image is available on a mug — and on t-shirts, bbq aprons, mouse pads….

Fluke makes very well regarded test equipment capable of detecting and measuring everything under the sun, but I did not know they made a Magical Girl Detector:

The readout is calibrated in “sparklogens”.

See the last two panels from today’s Megatokyo comic by Fred Gallagher. Coloring by a fan, who sails under the very false flag Uncreative. The pink may be a little too dark, but the concept is fabulous. I want one of these. I’m thinking a theremin or metal-detector circuit could be made to work.

Fan EcureuilMatrix notes “I suddenly have this urge to get cans of flashy paint and break into the Uni’s labs. I’m sure my experiment would be funnier if the diffractometer was lime green with purple spots.”

And zerogee points out that such a meter would likely require this palette to work properly.

Spoiler:
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Then over at Penny Arcade, Tycho encounters some knee-jerk gun-phobia (is there any other kind?) while engaging in a bit of costume play with his medigun at a game convention [click to see in readable full-size]:

“Peacebonding”. Ha Ha Ha!

I’m not a gamer, but even I know who Gary Gygax is: the genius who invented Dungeons and Dragons, a fantasy role-playing game based on a complex system of dice rolls and books filled with tables to look up the outcomes of every conceivable interaction an adventurer might have in a world of elves, dragons, warriors, and sorcerers.

He died the other day.

Gabe and Tycho, the geniuses over at Penny Arcade, came up with the absolute best epitaph.

Ever.

For anybody.

[update]
Gack-ax! “Gygax” not “Gynax”! Thanks to Desi in comments.