Puck 384

Chapter: One of the BoysCharacters: Colin PuckTags: coupon ice cream
NEW VOTING INCENTIVE!!! FIGHTING GAME COSPLAY!!! Have you ever wanted to see some of the Puck cast dressed as characters from fighting games? NO? Well, someone did! Whichi is why you’re seeing this! Patrons on Patreon who pledge $5 or more a month get a personal say in what incentives are coming your way! If YOU want to put your two cents in, then my HEAD ON OVER TO PATREON and join the select club! VOTE FOR THE FINISHING MOVE! As for this comic… You people say that Puck never appreciates Colin. Well, I wanted to give you SOLID PROOF TO THE CONTRARY.

171 Comments

  • SalemCat

    I never thought I’d see the day….

    • ElectricGecko

      Pigs do fly!

      • pat

        Kevin Smith used to fly Southeast. But I like JetBlue’s Christmas campaign planes.

        • ElectricGecko

          Hey man, Kevin’s lost A LOT of weight. And because of that, he looks WAY older. In addition to, you know, being old. Though his podcast is still called ‘Fatman on Batman’, because hey, it’s catchy.

          • Mahnarch

            You think HE’s old? Catch this: Billy Corgan is 50.

          • NarcanGoat

            Silly ElectricGecko, don’t you know you are supposed to snidely rip on people as you hide behind your keyboard…never be NICE and humane! 😉

          • ElectricGecko

            I can’t help it.

            Besides, I really like Kevin Smith. He’s such a positive person. He loves everything. Every TV show, every movie, he’ll find something positive to say about it. I am not always the biggest fan of his more recent movies, but even he acknowledges that he’s not the world’s greatest movie maker. He’s positive about every other movie but his. I find that endearing.

          • pat

            I like Kevin Smith too, I just tried to rip on Southeast. And failed.

            Cue the wah wah trombone noise from “Strange Brew”

      • Shan

        … and in this week’s episode of “Stockholm Syndrome” …

  • pat

    Like momma always says, Life is like a warm sofa, you never know what kind of coin you can get.

    • DLKmusic

      BUT!!!

      You CAN usually count on SOME change!!!! GO COLIN!

    • ElectricGecko

      Ew. Warm sofa.

      • pat

        Finally someone found the butt of the joke.

      • maarvarq

        Depends whose butt the couch is warm from, really. Also, I’d still feel sorry for Colin, given that a Dairy Queen coupon and couch change are a great treat, but Miranda exists (I just got the Shakespearean significance of Puck’s daughter being named Miranda…) so presumably Colin and Puck still “do it” occasionally.

        • ElectricGecko

          So you’re saying the sign of appreciation should consist of MORE than ice cream? Well, come back next week. The ice cream might be only the first step.

  • Keith

    Relationship achievement unlocked. Colin gets a blue ribbon.

  • Shan

    I’ve funded actual whole webcomic pages with money found under furniture so this concept is no way far fetched.

    • ElectricGecko

      What’s the biggest coin they’ve got in Australia? Up here, it’s the $2 coin. And it’s HEFTY.

      • Shan

        It’s a $2 coin here too, and it’s *tiny*.

        • SalemCat

          The USA has been trying to convince its citizens to use their $1 coins for years. Metal Currency lasts a long time, so is less expensive to produce.

          But they’re going about it all wrong.

          $1 coins should be TINY (6mm would be good), so they don’t present an inconvenience in the pocket.

          • ElectricGecko

            That’s a serious problem with Canadian change. You break a twenty and suddenly you’ve got ten pounds in coin. That’s one of the many reasons why most Canadians use Interac for everything and never carry cash.

          • Susan Schroeder

            That effort hit rock bottom with the “Susan B. Anthony Dollar,” known to the flacks at the Mint as a “Susie” and the rest of the country as “the ugliest coin ever made”. We free American will never give up our Georgies. Or our guns.

          • Buggle

            Still hoping for the Harriet Tubman $10 bill, tho…

          • Susan Schroeder

            Not me. If they are going to honor Tubman, I vote for the $100. Hamilton and Jackson are gorgeous. Ben Franklin is ugly, bald, and fat. It would be an aesthetic upgrade for US currency

          • Wyvern

            The problem with that idea is that they’d be *way* too easy to lose. Think about how easy it is to lose a penny, and multiply the value by 100.

          • Wyvern

            @ Susan: “All about the Harriets” just doesn’t have the same ring to it as “All about the Benjamins”.

          • SalemCat

            @Wyvern

            “The problem with that idea is that they’d be *way* too easy to lose. Think about how easy it is to lose a penny, and multiply the value by 100.”

            The problem with USA Pennies is not their size, it is their utter lack of value.

            People don’t lose them; they throw them away.

            If their SIZEwas an issue, ithere would be US Dimes scattered on the streets, and as of yet, that doen’t happen.

          • Susan Schroeder

            @Wyvern. Good. I hate phrases from rap thugs like “All about the Benjamins.” Worst is “Give it up for…” asking for applause.

          • Buggle

            It’s not about how pretty they are – it’s about the contributions they’ve made.

            And besides, in his youth, Benjamin Franklin was apparently something of a Casanova – maybe you could petition to have his younger face put on the $100 bill?

          • SalemCat

            Harriet Tubman was a Republican and a Gun Owner.

            THIS is the “Tubman” I want to see.

            Sadly, photography was in its infancy until very late in her life, so the majority of her pics show one butt-ugly woman (as are most old people – time is rarely kind to any of us).

            Politics being what they are, it would be very UN-PC to have a strong, beautiful, forceful black woman on US Currency. So I fear my “Tubman” will never be printed.

            If and when there is a Tubman, it will be someone’s dumpy, wrinkled gramma.

            (sigh)

          • SalemCat

            @Buggle

            Absolutely right.

            Benjamin Franklin was well known as a very smooth talker and “Ladie’s Man”.

            I’m certain he’d be horrified to see that every representation of him that we ever see illustrates him in his dotage.

          • Susan Schroeder

            Okay, lessee…Alexander Hamilton was the first Secretary of the Treasury and pretty much invented the American economy. Andrew Jackson won us Florida. Ben Franklin wrote a stupid almanac and the word’s most boring autobiography and seduced a bunch of Frenchwomen (hard task, that!). Sorry my vote stays agains Fatso Baldie Needs a Haircut.

          • SalemCat

            @Susan

            How do you like the proposed $20 of Harriet Tubman brandishing a Revolver ?

            (I think it’s an 1858 Patent Remington)

            (And if it were a Fifty instead of a Twenty, fine with me.)

            Either way, heads would EXPLODE !!

            Kind of like FDR’s Statue

            FDR HATED to be seen in his Wheel Chair; forbade any photographer from showing him in it.

            But he LOVED cigarettes.

            So obviously the PC Crowd shows him in a WheelChair, and no cig in sight.

          • markm

            Tiny and obviously different from the other tiny coins by both color and shape. E.g., make it octagonal.

          • SalemCat

            @markm

            Orrrrrr … shape them as SHURIKEN !

            “here’s your change, mista…”

            “one” … “ow”

            “two” … “ow ow”

            “three” … “ow ow ow”

            “four” … “NO, NO ! Godammit, we’re GOOD !” “I’m outa here !”

          • ComedyHobo

            What do Al Capone and Ben Franklin have in common?

            They both died of Syphilis. Seriously.

            Syphilis aside, Ben Franklin was likely the single most important, and influential person in American history. Maybe Susan should spend a little bit of time reading a history book or two, rather than running or talking about her bf. I’m fairly certain the lizard will nuke that last sentence, no matter how true it is.

          • SalemCat

            @CH

            Jeez !

            We like Susan here.

            We even like you.

            So BEHAVE, please.

          • ComedyHobo

            @ SalemCat

            Us Hobos are not well known for our manners, table or otherwise. And let’s be honest, NO ONE likes Hobos, Comedy or otherwise. He’ll, I’M a hobo and I don’t like us! Them? Me?? Nobody likes me cuz I’m an ***hole …And a hobo.

        • SalemCat

          I carry US Pennies for only ONE reason.

          If you’re at McDonalds, and the total amount includes a cent or two (due to taxes), if you can’t hand the Cashier at least the Pennies required, you are DOOMED to receive even more of the loathsome things as change !!

          • ElectricGecko

            Which is why their total elimination is liberating! We have no pennies up here. And life is good.

      • Wyvern

        I grew up in Hong Kong, which briefly had bimetallic $10 coins (worth ~ $1.25 US).

        • ElectricGecko

          $10 coins worth $1.25 US? OW! I’ve lived in Canada with a depreciated dollar most of my life, but THAT is CRAZY!

          • Wyvern

            Eh, I never really looked at it that way. There’s hundreds of yen to the dollar, but that doesn’t mean it’s a weak currency. I’m no economist, but I’ve always thought of it as being on a different scale, like cm vs. inches.

            The smallest HK coin, incidentally, is the 10-cent coin, which sees about as much use these days as US pennies.

          • ElectricGecko

            Enh, makes sense. I guess I’m applying Canadian logic to the scenario. The Canadian dollar is often close to the value of the American dollar, but not quite. For a little while, it was actually worth more than the American dollar, but that didn’t last. Now it’s about 65% of the American dollar. The issue is that Canadian salaries are, generally speaking, no higher than American ones, but everything costs more. And shopping online is a NIGHTMARE. The international shipping and the currency conversion mean that you end up often paying double whatever the list price is, especially if customs stops it at the border and slaps a tax surcharge on it – and Americans one hour away in Buffalo get the item shipped for free. Sigh.

          • Shan

            Now imagine a country with an approximately 1:1 value with Canada but the victim of insane price gouging on top of that. It was cheaper for me to go to California and buy the laptop I’m using than getting it sent here.

          • ElectricGecko

            Perhaps. But it needs to be said twice.

          • ElectricGecko

            That’s long been the motto of Canada: “CANADA: At least we’re not Australia!”

          • Shan

            Really? It’s not “Canada, at least we’re not the US?”

            I call shenanigans.

          • ElectricGecko

            Well, it’s that too. Actually, it’s that MOST of the time, except when shipping and handling are concerned.

          • SalemCat

            @Shan

            If you can ignore the Politics, America is a Consumer’s PARADISE.

            All things considered, the vast majority of Material Items are very affordable compared to anywhere else.

  • Hernshound

    I love couch cushion change; it’s like life handing you a free soda (or hot fudge sundae). Even better is when you find a $20 or $10 bill in a pocket of a garment that you haven’t worn in forever.

    That feels like life taking you out to lunch and picking up the check!

    (Oh, and Colin, pick me up a Peanut Buster Parfait from DQ, would you?)

    • Shan

      The record find in our family for something relatively comparable is a bit over $3,000.

    • ElectricGecko

      I’ve always boycotted the Peanut Buster Parfait due to the fact that the name explicitly teases the concept of peanut butter (with an added letter), but then the actual sundae contains NO PEANUT BUTTER. I mean, yeah, there’s some roasted peanuts on top, but come on. I think they need to up their game and come out with an EXTREME Peanut Buster Parfait, now with peanut butter!

      • Hernshound

        I’ve always assumed that the name came from the multiple layers of hot fudge and peanuts, not any implication of peanut butter.

        I’m fond of that particular confection since it was the first treat my mother bought me from Dairy Queen when I was just a lad. Of course, that was the year it was first introduced (1971), so there’s a little bit of nostalgia there too.

        I’m more of a pistachio, pumpkin, or peach hard-serve ice cream man myself these days, but a throwback to the old days is nice every once in awhile.

    • Susan Schroeder

      I found a twenty in my bluejean jacket pocket after the first cold snap of the year, once. Now I look hopefully every time. Me and Pavlov’s mutts.

      • SalemCat

        @Susan

        Go to the ATM and withdraw an enormous fistful of Twenties.

        Go home; Get massively hammered. But before you collapse, race about sticking a Twenty randomly into Couch Cushions, Old Jackets, Pillow Cases, Tight-Fitting 4″ Heel Over-The-Knee Black Patent Leather Boots with Chrome Zippers up the Sides, Towels, Ammunition Cans.

        Now, now, just ONE TWENTY per item. Let’s not go CrAzY.

        Lean Back, Pass Out.

        Just think of all the Fun Moments in the Future you’ve just created for yourself !

        (I’ve seen this done, and it DOES work !)

      • ElectricGecko

        Keep checking. Another will show up eventually.

      • DLKmusic

        I once had a $100 that I found in an old pay check envelope that I almost through out, when I was cleaning out the bill-box.

        I still go crazy thinking about how much cash I might have lost that way…

        • ElectricGecko

          See, this is why cash is weird. I never, ever carry around hundred dollar bills. Ever. I seldom even have quarters in my pockets. It’s a problem when I need to park at a meter, let me tell you.

  • Kaiser

    I think this is the second time she’s appriciated Colin.
    The first time would be around when she was pregnant and she was trying *not* to murder him.
    Most women I know left their husbands half-dead while giving birth.

    • ElectricGecko

      I’m sure she’s appreciated him a few more times. In little, easily forgotten ways.

      • Buggle

        “How scary *am* I?”

        Salem?

        • SalemCat

          @Buggle

          Oh Buggle, I’ve seen you during an Absinthe Binge, and even then you were very reasonable, and never fired a Shotgun at anyone who did not deserve it.

          (forgetting to add sufficient Tartar Sauce on a Filet-O-Fish is not the trivial offense some would claim it to be)

  • OtherAnonymous

    Just curious, since Puck is originally from England, what kind of accent does modern Puck have?

    • ElectricGecko

      That’s a good question, and honestly I don’t have an answer. In my head, I’ll admit, she speaks with a North American standard accent, but a British accent could work too.

      • Shan

        Karen Gillan.

        She sounds like Matt Smith era Doctor Who Karen Gillan.

        Sometimes it’s like Selfie or Oculus Karen Gillan but then I wake up from the nightmare I’m having and then it goes away.

  • Colin’s got a pretty good amount of his own crazy. It wasn’t that long ago that he lost Miranda at that amusement park, after all.

  • PueyMcCleary

    Apropos to Puck’s aversion to the Blonde side of the force, last week I mentioned that I had thought that somewhere in The Silmarillion someone called someone else “Straw-head” in Sindarin.

    It took me a couple of days to find the reference — and it’s not even Sindarin. Here’s a quotation from “The Tolkien Gateway:”

    FORGOIL:

    “Death to the Forgoil! Death to the Strawheads! Death to the robbers from the North!” ― Dunlendings (The Two Towers, “Helm’s Deep.”)

    The Forgoil, or the Strawheads as it reportedly translated in Westron, were the enemies of the Dunlendings. In the rest of Middle-earth, they were known as Rohirrim.

    End of quotation. To read the full article, please visit:

    http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Forgoil

    So, I got the wrong book and the wrong language, but at least we get the only known word in the Language of the Dunlendings, which is kinda cool.

    In Summary:

    It is possible that Puck is descended from the Dunlending people which had a rivalry with the Rohirrim. This makes a bit of sense, since the Dunlendings were short, dark pseudo-Celts whilst the Rohirrim were tall, blonde pseudo-Rohirrim. The Dunlendings had a long and bloody history with the Rohirrim, and were driven from some of their lands by the Numinoreans (Atlanteans).

    See, it all makes perfect sense.

    Also … I’m sure freckles were involved.

  • SalemCat

    It’s TIME for a new ARC !

    Hooray !!

  • Greg White

    I bet there’s loose change in their bed somewhere.

  • Greg White

    Why not have Puck do her happy dance to the Russian folk song Katyusha.

  • Buggle

    Not quite what I expected or wanted… I feel unfulfilled still. 3/4s of the way done.

    TWO MORE WEEKS.

  • Buggle

    And Puck is still miserly with her grocery money as ever, I see…

    • ElectricGecko

      Some things never change. Scottish cheapness is one of those things.

    • DLKmusic

      In Fairness, Buggle, I’ve been in the “can’t afford Kleanex” budget crisis. Puck’s grocery money is what the family eats on, and letting him have the change under the sofa actually is kind of a big deal!

      This I know from experience!

      • ElectricGecko

        Yeah. Puck has established herself as the guardian of the money in the best interests of the family. Because Colin would spend it all on magic beans if he had the chance. And by ‘magic beans’, I mean ‘Transformers’.

        • Buggle

          And not Phoebe, because she’s already filthy rich and might not understand the value of money… And not Daphne, because she would try to gamble for more or ‘invest’ in something bad…

          Yeah, I see your point.

          • SalemCat

            @Buggle

            I’m betting Daphne does not let Robin anywhere near her money (though one must wonder what its source may be).

            And neither should Phoebe. In fact the interest alone on the 150K Robin and Colin owe her should more than make up for free rent of a single room.

            That leaves Colin pretty much financing everyone !

            (though I bet Phoebe kicks in a bit for food, toiletries, and utilities. not because she has to; just because she’s nice)

  • Susan Schroeder

    Cats may not have nine lives, but they do aimlessly repeat themselves, I see. 😛

  • Does this mean that Puck manages the money that Colin – an English teach IIRC – earns?
    This can be a functional way to manage a relationship. Every family is different; the important thing is to invent a system that works. It’s a pity her babymoney windfall got blown on repairing Funderland, otherwise might we have seen Puck invest in, oh I don’t know, a hot dog franchise?

    • ElectricGecko

      I think ‘manages the money’ is perhaps overstating it. I think, out of the two, she’s the cheaper. But I think of Puck as penny-wise and pound-foolish. She dislikes spending money on small, insignificant things like ice cream or parking. But when she has the opportunity, she wouldn’t hesitate to spend thousands of dollars on some luxury vacation.

      This makes sense with her life, I guess. She’s experienced at being poor. She knows how to stretch a dollar to its furthest, but she’s wholly inexperienced in what to do with actual money, if it ever comes her way.

  • Wyvern

    I knew what “loonies” referred to, but “toonies” was new to me. Then again, I think I’ve only visited Canada once since they were introduced.

    So has Colin been forbidden from buying ice-cream previously in the strip? It seems like an oddly specific prohibition.

    • ElectricGecko

      Toonies came out in 1996, so it’s been a while since you’ve been up here, friend. (Though in honesty, I haven’t been to the U.S. ever since the American government demanded that all Canadians must have a passport because we might be dangerous. And that was over fifteen years ago.)

  • Greg White

    1996 was when Mcdonald’s opened in India and when Buffy was called as the slayer in her hometown of Los Angeles.

  • pat

    Hey, Americans have to have a passport to cross over now as well. It’s one reason I haven’t been up north to study Super Mario Kart weaponry and driving strategies for the win.

    And on a serious note, I’m using an ad blocking browser to post this note because because I got hijacked twice in three minutes.

    • ElectricGecko

      By ‘hijacked’, what do you mean? I seriously want to know, because I don’t want crazy garbage happening on my site like pop-ups or that kind of thing.

      • SalemCat

        I don’t know about Pop-Ups, but most of the day yesterday, I’d go to Top Web Comics, vote for PUCK (and mebe someone else), and then click to see the comic.

        HUGE RED SCREEN

        Google was identifying any comic linked to TWC as a Malware-Infested Web Site.

        • ElectricGecko

          So it wasn’t just my comic, though? If it was everything, then that tells me that something goofy was going on with TWC, but if it’s something goofy with my own site, I need to know.

          • SalemCat

            When I typed in the actual address, no problem.

            But click-thru from TWC: RED SCREEN.

            And it definitely was not confined to Puck.

          • SalemCat

            I should have done a Screen-Capture.

            From what I read on the RED SCREEN Google was responsible.

            If it happens again I will do a Screen-Capture.

          • Susan Schroeder

            My experience was like Salem’s

          • SalemCat

            See, SEE ?

            Susan confirms my story.

            And Susan never makes stuff up, like I, umm, certain other cats do.

          • ElectricGecko

            I just tried it out myself, and yep. Big red screen of ominous warning pops up for EVERY webcomic out there. Kind of weird. Not sure what’s going on with that.

          • DLKmusic

            I have the problem too, Salem, but it only occurs when I clink on the link to go back to the comic. It will also appear if you try to click on the banner of the comic without voting.

            My solution i is to open the TWC link in a separate tab, then close that tab when I finish voting.

  • SalemCat

    Just checked it again.

    No RED SCREEN at all.

      • SalemCat

        Don’t be frightened.

        My link contains no malware; nor is it clickable.

        It is simply an image of what TWC is returning when I wish to go to Puck, or any other Web Comic there.

      • ElectricGecko

        It means TWC has an issue with its redirect-tracing software, I think. See, sites have a really, REALLY hard time tracking exit links – when a user clicks on a link to go to another site – because (strictly speaking) that click and link aren’t recorded by your website; they’re recorded by the website the user is going to.

        The main way around this for most software trackers is the establishment of another tracking site that the users are rerouted through. So when they click on the link (to, say, a webcomic), they’re momentarily redirected to another site for a fraction of a second. That site records the hit, and registers it as an exit link, and then re-redirects the user to the actual site they were supposed to be going to. All tracking software does this, and most sites have some sort of tracking software running in the background, so this is actually happening all the time to you and most people don’t know it. My best guess is that there’s an issue with TWC’s tracking software, where Google is thinking that tracking link is dangerous. Who knows? Maybe the tracking link IS dangerous, or has recently been declared so. Anyway, probably best to just type in the link or use Google for right now.

  • At some point in my life Dairy Queen’s got kind of pricey. At least in British Columbia. Their food remains cheap as free, but when you order a small Blizzard they’re like “That’ll be 5 bucks.” It always makes me want to reenact the scene from Pulp Fiction where Uma Therman orders the “5-dollar shake”, and John Travolta’s like “That’s milk and ice cream… you don’t put bourbon or anything like that in there?”

    • ElectricGecko

      That’s why they instituted the Mini size. Which is, like, four bucks. INCREDIBLE DEAL! But whatever. I don’t eat ice cream regularly, so I have a ‘to hell with it’ attitude when I do go.

  • drakeye

    puck your such a saint

  • Greg White

    Diary Queen made use of Dennis the Menace for a time.

  • Susan Schroeder

    *grumble* I looked under the cushions of my bf’s couch last night while he was cooking. No money, but lots of crumbs. This might be because the man wears surgical scrubs (which only have a breast pocket and a hip pocket) every minute of the day and night when I don’t actually make him put on what he calls “civvies.”

    • ElectricGecko

      To be honest, I use a wallet with a zippered change pocket on it. It makes the wallet bulkier, but it means I don’t carry loose change in my pockets and lose it less often. My couch cushions currently contain toys and crumbs and such, but no coins. (I also have a young daughter who is always on the lookout for money to put in her bank, so if any coins DID fall down, they wouldn’t last long. Which, now that I think about it, would probably occur in the Puck household with Daphne. Hmmm. Didn’t consider that.)

  • SalemCat

    Poor Colin.

    Does he even get an allowance ?

    COLIN’S WALLET

  • Come to think of it, how much money could their be in their couch cushions? We all know the level they live on. And who, who has any loose change in their pockets, would sit on their couch?

  • It’s good to see Puck acknowledging Colin’s good qualities. ^_^

  • The gall of this chick….

    How long has she been sittin’ on that coupon????? 😀

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *