Baron and Peedles: Episode #4 - Part 5

So law school starts on Monday, and I don't know how often I'll be able to update, but I'll give it my best shot to keep this strip as regular an occurrence for the half-dozen or so folks I know tune in at least occasionally (when I drag them over to a computer monitor and force them to type in the URL). I do promise to wrap up this little story arc.

Hey, just today I received a list of the top ten weirdest PLAYMOBIL® offerings available out there from a fellow PLAYMOBIL® fan so it looks like I'll be adding a few items to my wish list (or trolling more ebay auctions...yum!).

Heh, well really most of the items on the list won't fit in with the Baron and Peedles, but this item definitely would, and so would this item!

You know, with all the guns, swords, devils, aliens, and executioners and safe-crackers out there in PLAYMOBIL® land, I'm wondering even more now what constitutes inappropriate content for your average 5 year old...

Baron and Peedles: Episode #4 - Part 4

On the topic of self-censorship, I want to speak to today's panel 5. PLAYMOBIL® has a policy that non-commercial fan sites are allowed as long as they don't depict "any violence that is inappropriate for children under 5".

Just so we're clear: Yes Bob Hazmat (and no his partner's name isn't Mat HazBob, it's Gene (Eugene) Hazmat and they're brothers) is currently "tussling" with Edgar but there will be no comic renditions of Bob running around in tight circles afterwards covered in ketchup and bemoaning lost orbits.

PLAYMOBIL®'s policy for non-commercial fan sites (and yes, that means I'll never make a dime off this strip, and rightly so since it's they creations that are allowing me to express my own creativity...or avoid therapy bills or what have you) can be found here.

I'm not sure exactly what qualifies as "inappropriate" levels of violence for a child under 5, given the state of today's television programming, but all it takes is one complaint these days (and not even about violence!) for people to get downright silly about censorship.

Anyway, this is just in case you were wondering. The one person in the "under 5" category who reads this strips is finding it colourful and fascinating so far and gets very excited every time I show it to her. Then again, she gets that way when I hand her a banana, so at this point it's not a rousing endorsement of my comedic talent or anything...

Baron and Peedles: Episode #4 - Part 3

Sorry for the slightly late update today, my wife just started a lovely new job working in a dungeon just yesterday and we went out to celebrate last night!

No, no, seriously, it's practically a dungeon. It's the sub-level of a dark and dusty gallery where she works her evil magic framing people (well, their paintings anyway). Best job in the world. She lets herself in, works for hours alone without any pesky people to disturb her, then goes home.

It's paradise, considering one of her previous jobs was "internet tech support agent". She still has issues with ringing phones and people. No, that's not quite right. This sums it up better:

Some folks have "issues", my wife has an entire subscription...

Baron and Peedles: Episode #4 - Part 2

Of all our senses, that of smell creates the most basic and powerful memories. This is the reason why scents like vanilla remind people on a basic level of home, baking, mom and apple pie (assuming your mom puts vanilla in apple pie. Mine never did, but that's because she would freeze the pie so I couldn't smell it coming, then fling it at me great velocity when I wasn't expecting it. The vanilla might have given it away ahead of time, I suppose.

My childhood memories of apple pie include nothing but pure terror, really. Therapists don't even have a term for this (crustumalophobia?)...

I was toying with the idea of a familiar smell you've smelled before, and came up with 'deja-poo' for today's installment. 'Deja-smell' just didn't seem right, and 'deja-pew' just seemed too...ecclesiastical...

Baron and Peedles: Episode #4 - Part 1

Being buried alive (well, for now anyway) in cat poop might be a fate worse than death for some, but remember, the one doing the scooping and dumping is a necromancer, so death isn't really much of a lousy fate in his book. More of an occupational hazard.

I'm not sure what that says about the life expectancy of our little (currently quite fragrant) light blue apprentice figure, but let's not dwell on the more morbid elements of potential futures, shall we?

On the lighter side of things, "Scoop - Dump" is a game my little 19-month-old daughter likes to play with coffee beans. Ever since I let her smell coffee beans she insists on smelling them in the morning when I make coffee, and she helps me grind them up by scooping them out of one bowl and into another.

I usually wind up hunting around for coffee beans a lot, she's currently more of a "well-meaning chaos engine" than dextrous, exactly.

And our livingroom looks like it has a small rabbit-poop problem.

Coffee beans really do look like droppings.

Yes, thank you, I do write about poop alot. She's not out of diapers yet, so my life is a currently-never-ending series of poop jokes and references.

Baron and Peedles: Episode #3

Don't you wish you could set up a magic spell that would whoosh away (I prefer the term teleport, natch) the cat poop right out of the litterbox?

I tried getting a LitterMaid once. You've never seen a litterbox so clean in a house with two cats.

Of course, this was because they were so terrified of the darn thing they pooped everywhere but that self-cleaning monstrosity.

If I could only have convinced my cats to take up little tiny tools to treat their litter like a miniature zen rock garden, things might have gone differently.

We wound up passing that beastly thing onwards at a garage sale.

Baron and Peedles: Episode #2

Although it doesn't show (Ah Playmobil!, where even the venerable and aged retain their frozen plastic youthfulness...much like botox fashion victims), Peedles is an old cat with a grating voice, Mexican accent, and massive issues with incontinence.

Welcome to Crunchy Milk! - Baron and Peedles: Episode #1

Hi folks and welcome to Crunchy Milk (Dairy Gone Funny!) - an archive of thoughts and ideas that have been tossing around in the sewage pit I call my erstwhile excuse for a brain.

The first installment is a series of comics I have been wanting to draw for about a year but, bereft as I am of the talent required for actual doodles, I kept sabotaging my own efforts.

As my birthday is coming up, I have been Motivated by my lovely wife's gentle GothBoot (tm) slams to my head and several days worth of eBay sniping for choice PLAYMOBIL® pieces.

I have thus begun to chronicle the Adventures of the Baron von Poopenscoop and his cat "Peedles". Stay tuned for more B&P in hopefully regular installments!

As to the punchline, I was informed recently that such cats doo exist...