Unfunny: John is Shirking

Yup, not only did I fail to post an Unfunny yesterday but now I'm taking the whole danged week off. In London, no less, and for my Canadian readers: yes, the real one.

I'll try to check in from time to time, for instance if I end up forming a crime-fighting partnership with a Scotland Yard detective and a couple of Mods, or maybe if I discover an evil genetics laboratory in the Scottish Highlands. In the meantime, enjoy yourself another dose of Kafloppos:

Not quite as cryptic as the last one, perhaps, but the meaning of kafloppos still eludes me. Is it overcoming your OCD to date a tall girl, or forgetting to weed your garden? What is the common demominator?

- from Action Comics No. 102

 

Zatara, it Turns Out, is Incredible

 Zatara is one of those characters that haunts the corners of the DCU, usually showing up just in time to sacrifice himself for the greater good. As such, I’ve never had a real feel for the character.

“Oh hey, it’s Zatara! I bet he’ll get some magic-style ass-kicking done soon and… oh, he exploded. For the greater good.”

Obviously the guy is the sort of super-power dynamite that you have to write out of your story a quickly as possible to keep him from mucking things up, but just what is it about him that makes him so threatening? Seems all I needed to do was to start reading Golden Age comics, such as Action and World’s Finest, where Giovanni Zatara got his start - I am now convinced that Zatara is awesome. It’s not just that he combines his magician’s showmanship with his nigh-unlimited powers to do everything in the most mind-bendingly entertaining way possible:

No, it’s the fact that despite the fact that he has no secret identity (easily spotted), no invulnerability or extraordinary strength (easily knocked out) and widely-known weaknesses (just tie the guy up and gag him), he is essentially unstoppable. I’ve seen him knocked out, tied up, turned into things and catapulted into alternate dimensions and whatever scrape he’s in he always gets out of it, usually by pulling something like this:

I think that Zatara might be Magic Batman – the guy is completely unstoppable. Not only can he escape your Death Maze using only a piece of twine and some pocket lint but he will then animate the maze, have it chase you down the street while shouting labrynth-based puns and then throw you in jail.

What’s more, because he always wears a tux, sometimes his solutions get a bit… suave. Like the time that he was stranded on an alternate world on which two nations were locked in war and his solution was to, well, get their queens to forge a binding peace, if you know what I mean.

Oh for the life of a magic man.

Amazing True Life Facts!

I was just hanging out with some folks and the Czech student who is staying with my friend told us this amazing fact: in the Czech Republic (or at least the part that she went to school in), practical jokes are called Canadian jokes.

I have no idea of the etymology or anything like that, but I have never felt more patriotic in my life.

Unfunnies: Willy

 

Not only am I uncertain of the joke that is being attempted here, I am also unsure of the following:

- Does Willy normally smash his food into his maw with his bare hands?
- By "company", do they mean "pie-eating contest"?
- Is Willy legitimately implying that he needs to practice eating with a fork? Is he trying to scam some pie? Is it both?
- What's with the air currents in this place? That steam is going everywhere.

- From World's Finest No. 30