Tales From The Town #194: Facts About… Halloween!!!!!

Panel 1: Facts About… Halloween!!!!! (all caps, with spooky shadows and a quintuple exclamation mark at the end, above a small close up of Claire and the words “with Claire!!!” written in a blood red and slightly haunted font that continually drips blood. Also Claire’s face is orange for some reason)
Panel 2: Close up on Claire’s orange face – “Halloween?”
Panel 3: Closer up on Claire’s orange face – “Holloween more like!”

Please Note: If you would like to carve Facts About… With Claire! into a pumpkin please contact Claire at claire@claire.claire for the necessary and specific permissions that only Claire can grant.

*****

“I don’t get it,” said Daniel.

“Because you’re stupid,” Claire said. “Everyone else gets it.”

“I don’t get it either,” said Ethel.

“Yeah, I’m not sure I really do, either, Claire,” Tina said.

“Urgh,” said Claire. “It’s a pun. I can’t believe I’m having to explain this to everyone.”

“Yes, but a pun about what?” Tina asked.

“About halloween!” Claire shouted. “Hollow sounds a bit like hallow, right?”

“Yeah, but… what does hollowness have to do with halloween?” Tina asked.

“Hollow like a pumpkin!” Claire said. “I even coloured my face in orange so it was obvious.”

“We just thought that was how your face always looks,” Ethel said. “Due to Wotsits!”

“Shut up, Ethel!” Claire said. “Anyway, I’d like to see any of you come up with a better joke that is also a fact that fits the theme of the comic strip for this week, once a week, every week, for ever! It’s not easy at all. It takes me absolutely ages to even come up with one of these.”

“Claire’s comic strip?” Ethel said. “Claire’s moronic strip more like!”

“That’s not a fact,” Claire said. “It’s an opinion.”

“Ghosts?” Tina ventured. “NO-sts more like!” She looked up at Claire’s intense unblinking stare for a few moments, before feeling that maybe she needed to offer up an explanation for the joke just in case. “Because, you know, there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“Obviously,” said Claire. “But I can’t just be printing everyday facts in the comic strip. They need to be funny.”

“Mine was funny,” Tina said.

“No it wasn’t,” Claire said. “It was clever. No one wants to read comic strips that are clever. No one.”

“Anna does,” Ethel said.

“Exactly,” said Claire. “And Anna’s an idiot.”

“And Dad does,” Tina said.

“Dad’s comic strips are stupid,” said Claire. “And boring. No one even knows what they’re about.” She stared at her two sisters with a look of triumph on her face. “So anyway, I think this has all proved that I’m the best at writing comics and everyone else is the worst. I WIN!”

“You can’t win at comic strips,” Tina said. “That’s not how comic strips work.”

“You can’t win at comic strips,” Claire said. “Whereas I definitely ca-”

“Oh, I get it now,” Daniel suddenly said.

“What?” Claire said.

“”Pumpkins? Plumpkins more like!” Daniel said.

“Shut up, Daniel,” Claire said. “I’ve already won.”

“Treat or treat! Trick or eat more like!” Daniel said.

“Daniel!”

“October? Shocktober more like!” Daniel said.

“Shut up!”

“Werewolves? Scarewolves more like!” Daniel said.

“Shut u-”

“Ghostly slime? Mostly lime more like!” Daniel said.

“Shut-”

“Hula hoops? Cthulhu hoops more like!” Daniel said.

“Shu-”

“Bonfire night? Bonfire fright more like!” Daniel said.

“Sh-”

“Vampires? Hampires more like!” Daniel said.

“S-”

“Frankenstein’s monster? Frankenstein’s imposter more like!” Daniel said.

“Sh-”

“Ghouls? Fools more like!” Daniel said.

“Shu-”

“Spooktacular? Shoot Dracula more like!” Daniel said.

“Shut-”

“Skeletons? Smellytons more like!!” Daniel said.

“Shut u-”

“Superheroes? Superweirdos more like!” Daniel said.

“Shut up-”

“Eyeballs? Cryballs more like!” Daniel said.

“Shut up!”

“Cats? Bats more like!” Daniel said, before quickly adding, “Bats? Cats more like!”

“SHUT UP!” Claire said. “Daniel, you’re ruining everything. You need to stop.”

“But I’ve only just started,” said Daniel. “Fireworks? Direworks more like! Clowns? Frowns more like! Mannequins? Mannelimbs more like! A haunted house? A haunted mouse more like! Ravens? Rave-offs more like! Spider webs? Cider legs more like! Slugs? Mugs more like! Zombies? Wrongbies more like! Autumn? Boretumn more like! Headless horsemen? Headless norsemen more like! Half term? Scarf term more like! Hedgehogs? Hedgedogs more like! Halloween? Halloscream more like!”

“Why is he so good at this?” Claire sat down and moaned. “It’s so unfair.”

___________

Notes:

1. Written between September 30th and October 7th, 2024

Tales From The Town #192: Matches Of The Days

1. The Old Game

“Urgh, why do we have to play football again,” Claire said, as she stood near the goal (but not actually in the goal) with her hand up waiting for someone to pass her the ball so she could kick the ball into the goal as hard as she could. “I hate football.”

“Because the only ball we have left is the football,” Tina said, passing the football carefully away from Claire and over towards Ethel who wasn’t very near the goal at all and also didn’t have her hand up.

“Someone threw all the other balls down the well,” Ethel added, as she passed the ball nowhere near Claire even though she was quite near Claire and all the way over to Daniel instead who was miles away and not even looking.

“Including the football,” Claire said proudly. “So where did this one come from?”

“I found it in a bush,” Daniel said as he jumped over the ball and then ran round it in a circle for some reason before dribbling all the way back towards Claire and then he stopped and ran around it in a circle again then jumped over the ball once more just for good measure.

“What bush?” Claire asked, not looking at the ball any more but at Daniel who she was talking to.

“The football bush,” said Daniel. “Where the footballs live.”

“There’s no such bush,” Claire said.

“There is,” said Daniel, as he booted the ball past Claire while she was distracted and into the goal, and then out of the goal, because there wasn’t any nets up in the goal, so it went flying straight into the bush behind the goal (that Claire was near ((but not actually in)). “It’s that bush,” Daniel added, who then did a little dance.

“Urgh,” Claire said, her head dropping in despair as she trudged off to get the ball (out of the bush (behind the goal (that she wasn’t even in))). “I hate football so much.”

2. The New Game

“I’ve invented a new game,” Claire announced, when she came back with the ball, several minutes of grumbling later. “It’s much better than stupid old football. Right, Daniel, you go and stand over there.”

Daniel went and stood over there.

“And Tina and Ethel, you also go and stand over there,” Claire said.

Tina and Ethel also went and stood over there.

“And now I turn around and boot the ball over there,” Claire said.

Claire turned around and booted the ball all the way over there, as far away from everyone else as possible, and they all watched the ball as it bounced over the fence, and then ran down the hill, and then rolled into the road, and then a car hit the ball, and the ball went flying across to the other side of the road, and then a truck coming the other way hit the ball, and the ball flew back across to the first side of the road, and then a bus hit the ball, and this time the ball exploded.

That was the end of the game.

__________

Notes:

1. Written on September 29th, 2024

Untitled Card Game (a card game)

Untitled Card Game is a card game for two players, played on a 4 by 4 grid (or a 3 by3, 5 by 5, or 6 by 6 if you really want to go to town). There’s 44 cards (because that’s how many came in the little box of blank cards I bought years ago), each with 4 numbers on (all between 1 and 7, except on two cards, which have 0s and 8s on them), the sum of which always adds up to 16. No two cards are the same.

Players pick a hand at the start (8 cards each). All cards can be played in whatever rotation you want, so there’s no top/bottom, etc to any of them.

The first player plays their card somewhere on the 4 by 4 grid (not actually shown in the pictures, because I’d forgotten to draw a nice one), and puts a counter on it to show it is currently theirs (in this game we used various coins versus some black markers, but you can use what you want really, I suppose).

When the next player plays their card they have the chance to claim your card too, as long as the corresponding number on their card is higher than the one it’s been placed next to (if it’s next to multiple cards, you can claim as many of your opponents cards as yours can beat). You don’t have to place your card adjacent to any card that’s currently down, though, so you can stake out an empty corner of your own if you want. (Also, if you lay a card down with a number lower than the one it’s adjacent too, it doesn’t get beaten by the already played card.)

The winner at the end of the game is whoever has claimed the most cards on the grid. (If you play on an odd-numbered grid, the last player gets a bonus point to make up for them playing one card less during the game.)

All 44 cards can be seen in the picture below. You can leave out the two 0/8 cards if you want (they were mostly added so that my nieces/nephews could beat the 7s I kept laying down in the corners).

___________

Notes:

1. I made this on July 29th, 2024
2. Colouring in all these cards while watching the Olympics on my laptop
3. I never could come up with a good name for this.
4. My brother suggested 4 Square (because of all the fours in its construction, as noted above)
5. By I absolutely hated that name so it’s not called that at all.
6. Not now not ever
7. Maybe it should be called Quadruple Qriad, as it’s suspiciously similar to the Triple Triad card game from Final Fantasy 8
8. But you can’t prove a thing I never stole nothing (I did kind of steal something didn’t I?)
9. Anyway, originally I was going to use this box of blank cards to make a space themed game where you made a randomised solar system but I gaveup omn that idea because you could only have a seven by seven solar system really, and even then you couldn’t even have the four corners of the outer orbital circle.
10. And the sun at the centre had to be a bouncy ball.
11. While most of the cards would have needed to be completely black.
12. Also it wasn’t much fun (there was going to be a mechanic where it was easier to fly inwards toward the centre than it was outwards towards the oort, due to gravity, which just made the whole thing an absolute joyless chore).

Kill The King! (a board game)

Kill The King is a board game for two players, played on a 9 by 9 grid, for maximum incompatability with chess/draughts. One player plays the King’s Guard (who start in a circle round the king), and the other plays the King Killers, who start in alternating squares all the way round the edge of the board. The king, meanwhile, does nothing but sit still in his spot at the centre of the board.

Players alternate goes, with the killers going first. The killers can move 1 space, the guards can move either 1 or 2. While both sets of pieces can move diagonally, the guards can’t move straight and then diagonally in the same go, just one or the other.

An opponent’s piece is defeated if you move your piece onto its square. The guards win if all the killers are killed, the killers win if the king is killed.

You can adjust the difficulty up or down between players by having the winning side start with one less piece in the rematch, or voluntarily start with less if you’re feeling sporting.

And that’s pretty much all the rules of the game.

_________

Notes:

1. I made this on 23rd December 2023
2. But these pictures were taken in September 2024
3. I stole the little pieces from Carcassonne
4. And largely stole the game itself from a half remembered description of some old norse board game I saw a description of at Sutton Hoo one time.
5. When I played it with my nieces and nephews last Christmas, we used chess pieces rather than Carcassonne pieces.
6. The killers used all 16 pawns, while the guards used a mixture of the remaining pieces as the guards.
7. (A king played the king)