puns

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

__________

Support An Accumulation Of Things

If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi.

Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!

Islands

___________

Notes:

1. Originally written on October 17th, 2012
2. This version was made on January 18th, 2013
3. For making into a little folded book from a single piece of card
4. That looked like this:

5. If you want to make your own one, please download the two images below, print them on opposite sides of the piece of card, and then fold them up like this.

__________

Support An Accumulation Of Things

If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi.

Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!

Islands

__________

Notes:

1. Written on 17 October, 2012
2. I’m sorry it is so charmlessly drawn
3. I later made a nicer version of this
4. On a single sheet of paper
5. Folded in 8
6. With some islands on one side
7. And a map on the other
8. And which was small enough to fit in your pocket

__________

Support An Accumulation Of Things

If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi.

Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!

Faceist

I didn’t really think much about it when I saw one of them for the first time. A face drawn in marker pen on the back of a road sign, roughly life-sized, picassoishly distorted, a cubic smile and implied eyes. Just another piece of graffiti, seen and then unseen, like the competing names on the park benches or the tessellating geometric shapes painted all over the abandoned bus station’s walls.

The next time I saw it, weeks later, it was 8 foot high and four feet wide, painted in the middle of an advertising hoarding looming over the roundabout as I took the bus to the shops, the advert it had apparently been hiding beneath hanging limply down onto the pavement below, the rains in the night presumably strong enough to wash away the glue.

The next day I saw it twice: first, painted on the boarded up windows of a nearby corner shop, which, despite its usefulness and continuing economic viability, had been closed down and was now marked for demolition to make way for flats; second, drawn tinily on the tattered remains of an old hand written note stapled to a telephone pole that had, at some point, before the old ink had run and the photo had faded to monochrome, pleaded for information about a lost, loved, cat.

After that I began to see it everywhere: public toilets (both inside and out); on the slats of a picnic table in the churchyard; hand drawn on a schoolkid’s satchel as I caught the bus home; drawn on sheets of a3 paper and flyposted up on walls alongside the gig posters, circus advertisements, wrestling promotions, vote leave signs, etc; on underpass walls and overpass handrails; etched into the dirt on the back of a van; scratched into a tabletop at the pub; scribbled in the margins of a book I’d taken out from the library.

In the bus shelter at the end of my road there were thirteen in a row, one per wooden slat, long narrow bodies stretching down to the bench below, and then down even below that to the pavement, resembling together a family of hattifatteners taken up residence here instead of a dead and hollow tree somewhere far away from town.

I walked to the next stop and waited there instead.

From there, an acceleration: t-shirts; tattoos; on postcards in the racks outside the ice cream kiosks along the riverside; on cards and books in the window displays in the shops on the high street; the new logo of a kebab shop. I went into HMV one day and the entire display of new releases were sheathed in cardboard sleeves bearing this face, colourless, titleless, priced at £9.99 (or £12.99 on blu-ray).

In the pub on friday night, half glimpsed across the bar, someone with this face as their own. Heart pounding, I searched the place, increasingly frantic, but found no trace of them again.

But on my way home there was confirmation: leaning against a lamppost, smoking a cigarette, the orange cone of light from the street light wrapped around him like a teleportation beam or a forcefield.

It took a week, and by the end everyone’s face was the same. Strangers, neighbours, family, friends, a mangled uniformity into which everyone fell.

And it felt inevitable when they came to the door this morning. I barely even struggled. They held me down in the hallway, my head by the bottom stair, their faces leering in from all sides.

My mother knelt down beside me, pulled a sharpie from her handbag, held it up like a knife in front of my face.

She pulled off the top and went to work. Smiled as she redrew me.

__________

Notes:

1. Written on September 7th, 2017
2. A true story
3. in so much as someone had been drawing faces all like this all round town at the time
4. absolutely everywhere for some reason
5. Most of them have gone now

__________

Support An Accumulation Of Things

If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi.

Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!