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Wondermark Comics

@wondermark.com

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Comics made from vintage images AKA "a collaboration with the dead" ⏪ archives now go back several years! browse!! 💻 site: wondermark.com 📖 books/merch: store.wondermark.com 🔗 linkpop.com/malki for other links 🔩 card game! https://swiy.co/gf-bsky

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Mar 15

The first-ever Wondermark card game is live now on Backerkit! BOLTED is a game of "making friends." swiy.co/bolted-wmbs

the working cover of my new card game, BOLTED, "a game of making friends"

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Reposted by Wondermark Comics

Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Oct 1

It's October 1 again!! Break out the spiders an' skeletons!!

// Wondermark #1259; Let’s Be Deadly Serious Here

Two men look at skulls with spooky candles. One rants:
"Psshh!! October again? Everyone goes a bit daft with the SKULLS an' GHOULIES an' all that rot! We spend every OTHER minute makin' sure people buckle their seatsies an' wear a helmet to work. Eat your greens an' take a bloody vitamin.
"But come first of OCTOBER, haul out the coffins an' the stage blood an' the horrors of the grave! It's PERVERSE! Celebrating DEATH an' MISERY an' shoving SPIDERS at CHILDREN! People work HARD to stay ALIVE! Doctors work their FINGERS to NUBS keeping people breathing! A cause you'd like to think NO ONE could object to!
"Yet here YOU are, flaunting skeletons, spitting on first responders and COMPLETELY IGNORING how DEATH IS BAD and LIVING IS GOOD! How can you STAND it?"
A woman answers: "Honestly, I don't think it's worse than the CONTORTIONIST STRAIN required to deliberately ignore context to justify a complaint based on some overly literal interpretation."
"Oh yeah! When is ALIVE PEOPLE MONTH?!"

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Sep 6

I'm sure no one at all will find this relatable

Wondermark #1573; The Threat of Doing

INT. SITTING ROOM - DAY

JENKEN (be-piped) and PRONCHIE (her hand on his chair back) are reviewing important documents when the longsuffering LEMMETHA comes in and leans on a doorframe.

LEMMETHA: I got tired of waiting, so I started fixing the chair by myself. Where do you keep the chair putty? Should I go buy some?

JENKEN (alarmed): CHAIR putty? HOLD ON, hold on…

INT. WORKSHOP - MOMENTS LATER

Jenken is now hard at work chiseling a chair, which is being held in a vise.

JENKEN: All we really have to do is adjust the back like this… In the box of IKEA LEFTOVERS there’s probably one of the right brackets…

Pronchie watches the whole thing with veiled amusement.

PRONCHIE: You realize, the whole “fixing it myself” bit was a ruse to get YOU to finally fix it.

PRONCHIE: She’s figured out how to hack your motivation circuit, dude!

JENKEN: Honestly, I’m glad SOMEONE has! I can be the owner OR the operator of this brain, but not both at the same time

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Sep 6

Weird, it plays for me! Maybe it's a browser issue? Anyway welcome to Bluesky!

Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Aug 18

Really thought this phrase was going to be the breakout smash so I'm happy to hear you remember it so fondly!

A t-shirt bearing the memorable slogan ACH! IT SEEMS I HAVE ONLY PRE-WAR FJORDISH DRACHMAS

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Aug 17

If you're a newer reader or haven't seen the whole saga -- or simply want to revisit it with me! -- start here.

I've added links below each comic where there's a reference to something that will add context.

Check it out!!!

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Aug 17

I'm as proud of that storyline as anything I've done with Wondermark.

Now that that job has ended and I'm answerable only to myself again, I'm glad to look back on it as a reminder of how much fun all this can be creatively, given the right circumstances.

Two panels from Wondermark #1425. The veteronorfian, Sir Kel F. Finnt, is saying to the young car-riding elephant:

KEL: Man, I LOVE Chick Tracts. I ever show you what I like to do to 'em? HERE, I think I happen to have my favorite one WITH me...

PHANT: That's my man! Always prepared for anything!

Kel has turned a Chick Tract called 'Fallen Star' into a Shrek drawing, complete with 'Donkey!!' dialogue.

KEL: I turn all the people into Shrek. Give it a bit of a MAKE-OGRE. Adds a little extra...GAS to the CREATIVE TANK, I suppose you could say.

PHANT: Yeah! WHAT a concept! I could use a little "fuel" myself...

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Aug 17

Sick elephants were also the theme of that year's Wondermark Calendar – which would become the last installment of the calendar series (at least so far).

A few months into 2019, I was offered a job that radically changed my working availability, and my pace of making comics would slow for a time.

A copy of the 2019 edition Wondermark Calendar, entitled EXAMINING ILL PACHYDERMS: A VETERONORFIAN FIELD GUIDE. Visible on one calendar page is an elephant suffering from 'Timid Skin'.

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Aug 17

(My thanks to Sam for whipping up some cartoon heads of us both for this video!)

That summer of 2018, the storyline continued for months, and I put together a complete book collection that December.

A big stack of my book THE ELEPHANT OF SURPRISE

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Aug 17

Enjoy, for the first time posted publicly... The very first conversation that birthed the entire Wondermark "sick elephant" saga. The first voice you hear is mine; the second, Sam's. @samandfuzzy.com

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Aug 17

...as something that could be interpreted in different ways, and we went back and forth for a long while, trying to come up with ever-weirder punchlines to make each other laugh.

Eventually, so we wouldn't forget these great ideas, I recorded a voice memo.

This week, I found that recording.

Screenshot of my voice memos app. There is a file called 'Sick Elephant' dated Jul 30, 2018. (Whoops, I guess it was July, not August.)

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Aug 17

On the hunt for a simple but funny concept, I batted ideas back and forth with my friend and boothmate @samandfuzzy.com, who had also arrived on a late flight from the West Coast (in his case, Vancouver) and was in a similarly punchy mood.

The phrase "sick elephant" somehow arose...

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Aug 17

As it turned out, my recent trip to Gen Con was an auspicious return to a show where, almost exactly 7 years ago, that storyline began -- at Gen Con itself.

Aug 2018. I got to Indy after midnight, after a late flight from LA. But I still wanted to get a comic posted before the con began.

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Aug 17

...The first "Check out my sick elephant" strip hit GoComics on August 4, and of course, the entire saga will now continue to unspool over the course of months.

I'm excited to watch the commenters discover what's happening! They are a special breed of their own, on GoComics.

A GoComics commenter, writing:

I love this comic and every time I click on this comic and see it's another sick elephant installment I laugh before even reading the text :)

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Aug 17

I also run Wondermark comics regularly over at GoComics.

I've been working my way through the entire archive, slightly faster than real time, for almost a decade.

Which means...

The Wondermark landing page on GoComics, featuring the blurb:

"Wondermark" is a collage-based comic strip. By turns sarcastic, silly, weird, and wondrous, each comic is a window into an alternate world in which anything can happen but probably shouldn't. Every panel is assembled from engravings and woodcuts sourced from 19th-century magazines, newspapers, catalogs, storybooks, and primers, which makes "Wondermark" a collaboration with the dead. "Wondermark" is canonically set in the modern day—it's just that everyone has really good fashion sense.

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Aug 17

In fact, when I pitch the books to folks, I say, "You can start reading with any volume. There's no continuity, except for exactly one running gag." The theater critic watches Norbert's career rise and fall, as he acts in episode after episode.

Another theater-critic page, this time from my book EMPEROR OF THE FOOD CHAIN, in which the critic is very harsh about Norbert's performance in Wondermark #540.

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Aug 17

Because, as it turned out, most of those characters were played by the same few elephant actors! This is a recurring joke from my book collections: all the elephant strips are reviewed by a theater critic, evaluating the latest performance of the classically-trained Norbert.

A page from the Wondermark book BEARDS OF OUR FOREFATHERS. After reprinting a colorized version of Wondermark #013, in which the elephant crashes through the window, a theater critic expounds at length about the dramatic performance he has just witnessed from the elephant actor and the little girl.

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Aug 17

What started as a way to explore how multiple punchlines could stem from the same premise became a sprawling, months-long adventure that referenced (whether you knew it or not) every single time I'd ever featured any elephant in Wondermark.

A panel from Wondermark #188. A man explains, "My shirt is in Russian, which is ironic because the ideal consumer of this shirt does not speak Russian. He or she is also probably too young to remember the Soviet Union, thus neo-Soviet design is 'retro.' In addition, the shirt is ironic because it asks 'Where is my elephant?' although the elephant is clearly right there in the center."

Two panels from Wondermark #838, in which a small elephant in a straw boater and tall boots sings, "Oh it's off to...
Candycane Street
in Gumdrop Town
where the birds compete
to bother a clown

And the clown goes nuts
so the people cheer
and they show him their butts
'til he reeks of his tears"

A panel from Wondermark #245, in which a couple looks at a fortune cookie. "'Scream car elephant young be much mangle.' Man, someone screwed up in the translation department." Meanwhile an elephant is racing toward them out of control on a little car, yelling "AAAH NO BRAKES". The car is going NYAARRRMM

Two panels from Wondermark #013. An elephant crashes through a window. A little girl reading a book doesn't even look up.

The elephant instantly remounts his pennyfarthing bicycle to ride away.
ELEPHANT: Sorry about that.
LITTLE GIRL: I should think so.

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Aug 17

Longtime readers will remember, seven years ago, when I posted several Wondermark strips in a row that all seemed to be variations on the same joke. Starting here.

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Aug 17

Get yourself a friend who will NOT let things hurt you EVEN if they do not exist

Wondermark #1572; In which a Joke is disowned

Two men are chatting in an office. The first man, CHILTRED, dressed in an elaborate military uniform, is twirling his moustache, and continues to do so throughout the exchange, without pause.

CHILTRED: I heard this great joke earlier. What WAS it? AARRGH!! I can't remember! Something about dogs and ducks. DANGIT!! It was really funny. Now it's GONE.

PERMBLEY (the other man, seated): Is the distress you're feeling now greater than the joy the joke gave you originally?

CHILTRED: Oh, enormously.

PERMBLEY: So the EXISTENCE of this joke has been a NET LOSS for you! Don't REGRET its disappearance! RUE that it ever appeared! CURSE ITS MEMORY!!

CHILTRED: I don't HAVE its memory!

PERMBLEY: It has inflicted a joke-shaped SCAR on your psyche! FIE ON YOU, sinister dog joke! NEVER AGAIN dare to darken my dear friend's skull!

CHILTRED: WAIT. I remembered it.

PERMBLEY: NOPE! Don't you DARE!!

CHILTRED: It's not the JOKE'S fault I forgot it! It's innocent!

PERMBLEY: I will never be able to separate it from the trauma it has inflicted!

CHILTRED: That starts to sound like a YOU problem.

PERMBLEY: Wow. WOW. After I DEFENDED you.

CHILTRED: I did not INTEND to spend an APPARENTLY-CONDITIONAL friend defense on a JOKE about DOGS and DUCKS

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Jul 24

bsky.app/profile/wond...

Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Jul 24

Those stickers are paying for your hand soap, kiddo!!

Wondermark #1571; Of Integrity and Youth, Part 2

↩️ Part 1 here

CHARLEK, one of the kids from the previous comic in which kids were talking about how adults always try to change them, is now speaking with his MOM.

MOM: Please wash your hands for dinner!

CHARLEK: I'm perfectly self-actualized just as I am, thank you.

MOM: Honey, when we give you instructions like "Wash your hands", we're not trying to make you into SOMEONE ELSE. We're trying to help you become the BEST version OF you, using knowledge and perspective that you don't have yet. Such as the germ theory of disease.

MOM: So when we ask you to do things, it's in what WE believe to be YOUR best interest. Do you TRUST us?

CHARLEK: I mean, I GUESS

CHARLEK: But what about when you make me assembled sticker packs for your Etsy store? Is THAT in my best interest?

MOM: THAT'S because Mama's got a bunch of BACKORDERS! Come on, let's HURRY UP with that DINNER!!

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Jul 13

Let's get our messaging straight, as parents

Wondermark #1570; Of Integrity and Youth

Two kids, ALFY and BARBO, are chatting. Barbo is standing on a set of stilts. This is not relevant.

ALFY: You ever get this from your parents? "Don't worry, there's nothing wrong with you, you're perfectly normal..."

ALFY: I KNOW I am! Why are YOU bringing it up? What secret intel do YOU have about how I'm SUPPOSED to be feeling?

ALFY: Because I feel GREAT! Check your EXPECTATIONS!

BARBO: Grown-ups LIE to us, dude. Every other word my mom says is: "You're great" - "We love you JUST the way you are" - "You're the BEST YOU that you can be" - and so on.

BARBO: So I told her, "The person that I AM DOESN'T wear jackets, DOESN'T brush their teeth, and NEVER has to go to bed!"

A third child, CHARLEK, appears, holding a ball, which is also not relevant.

CHARLEK: Just last week, I was sick. My mom tried to give me MEDICINE. So I'm all "What was that BIG TALK about not wanting to CHANGE me?!"

BARBO: EXACTLY, dude!!

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Jul 11

It's nice to have friends over who share your hobbies.

Wondermark #108; In which a Briefing occurs

A very old Wondermark 3-panel comic. Two men in military uniforms stand near a woman who does not appear to notice them. One man is pointing toward the woman's head.

GENERAL: ...Out on the flanks as we are, the FRONT can't see us, but you still need to watch out for THESE bits on the SIDES. THEY can detect SOUNDS.
CAPTAIN: Omnidirectionally?!

GENERAL: I BELIEVE so, yes.
CAPTAIN: So those "side-bits" MIGHT be hearing us RIGHT NOW? We need to ENCODE our intelligence!

WOMAN: Oh, don't worry. I'm NOT AT ALL concerned about your supposed "intelligence."
CAPTAIN: ACCGGKK!! A DEVASTATING SALVO of PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE!
GENERAL: Ignore ALL messages we intercept! They are PROPAGANDA designed to DEMORALIZE us!
WOMAN: Hey! G.I. Joe! Your WIFE is at HOME! She wants to know what we should do about dinner!

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Jun 24

For me it would probably be the combination coffin and scooter shop

A photo of the showroom filled with both caskets and motor scooters

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Wondermark Comics @wondermark.com · Jun 24

tell me all the businesses that inexplicably survived or inexplicably failed in your neighborhood

Wondermark #1569; The Foldery has Folded

A couple walks down the street, the man in a turban, the woman in a very high-collared fur coat. This is ASHWAY and BERTREX

A: You know that origami flower shop we keep talking about maybe one day wandering through?
A: I finally had an occasion for which I would have liked some paper flowers. But they’ve closed!

B: That’s a shame, they just opened like five years ago!
B: I wonder how much of our community is powered by people imprudently opening wildly unprofitable businesses, pouring their time and savings into them for the period of exactly one commercial lease, then letting them close.

B: Like, it didn’t turn out to be sustainable, but for a while, you offered some cool origami classes for kids, and some people in the neighborhood have some paper flowers in their homes now? I assume?

B: Sorry it didn’t make you a millionaire, but you shoved the big stone wheel back uphill a few turns, and that helped us all.
A: And, in this metaphor, the big stone wheel is...
B: The thing that’ll smash us all into dust with its uncaring inertia if we don’t hold it at bay with our collective effort, yeah

A: Okay, cool. And our collective effort, in this context, means buying forty-dollar paper flowers?
B: Is THAT how much they cost?
B: I kept meaning to look in the store window when I walked by, but I never managed to tear my eyes away from my phone.

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