Funny / 8-Bit Theater

Clevinger: My favorite kind of joke is the one played on the reader

Every chapter of 8-Bit Theater has a good Funny Moment, but every tenth or so has a 'hilarity assured' joke.

General

• Any time any character attempts to formulate a plan, there will be one of these, guaranteed.
• The "Hadouken" variants.
  • "FIGHTERDOKEN!"
  • "MISSILEDOKEN!"
  • "MEDOKEN!"
  • "HADOYOUSTOPTHIS?!"
  • BOATDOKEN!
• A meta-example. Clevinger is best known as a Teasing Creator, and he created a fake, anticlimactic ending, expecting to receive tons of hate mail. Instead he was flooded with mail about how appropriate the ending was and had people thanking him.

2001

• In yet ANOTHER excessively long setup to an eventual payoff: Four White Mages? It'll never work. ...or maybe it will.
• Black Mage's entire first meeting with White Mage, setting the tone for their future relationship for years to come:
  White Mage: Oh, I'm dreadfully sorry!
  Black Mage: Hubba flubba wabba zabba (thinking) Snap out of it, you fool! The most gorgeous woman in the universe is talking to you! Time to turn on the patented Black Mage charm and make a good first impression. (out loud) I AM THE BLACK MAGE! I CASTS THE SPELLS THAT MAKES THE PEOPLES FALL DOWN!
  [Beat]
  White Mage: Of course you are. I'm going in here now. Please don't follow me.
  Black Mage: I think she likes me!
• Orbs of Light, bottom panel.
• Fighter's brilliant(ly stupid) idea for a hybrid weapon: sword-chucks.

2002

• I, GARLAND, WILL uh...KNOCK YOU ALL DOWN!
  • Even better when you're aware that except for the "uh...", it's a verbatim quote from the English translation of the first Final Fantasy game.
  • Probably what makes it even funnier still is the fact that he technically does knock them all down. By making them fall over laughing their heads off.
• "And thus, King Steve's Kick-Ass Bridge^note A modern-day suspension bridge was built. There's already a wreck in the southbound lane."
  Fighter: Man, traffic is always so bad on the King Steve.^note Which was just built.
  White Mage, Black Mage, and Thief: SHADDUP!
• Matoya poisons the Light warriors.
  Matoya: I hope I haven't POISONED your opinions of me. Because I'd hate to have POISONED our future dealings. Ooh! Ooh! Guess my favorite '80s band. Go on! Guess!
  Black Mage: Gee, I don't know, could it be... Poison?
  Matoya: No, it's Warrant! Gwa ha ha ha ha!
• The aftermath of the Light Warriors' nightmare-poison-induced shenanigans.
• Bikke's Establishing Character Moment:
  Bikke: Consider the lives of me crew forfeit.
  Garland: I'm sure it won't come to that.
  Bikke: It will if I says it will.
  • Bicke's crew is pathetically weak and easily beaten due to suffering from severe scurvy. Turns out Bicke fed them nothing but Cheetos, arguing that Cheetos are "orange", so they were packed with Vitamin C just like real oranges.
• "Organs... surrendering... like the French..."
• "They may be monsters, but they're sea monsters. What're they gonna do? Flop around on deck and suffocate at us threateningly?"

2003

• The Light Warriors being found in the female Elf barracks... dressed as women.
  • Even better, they appear to be curtseying when they answer the captain's questions.
• Dag. "Well, yeah, it is an elven slang. But more specifically it's prison slang."
  Fighter: Psst! What does "situational homosexuality" mean?
• The second nightmare Black Mage has due to the poisoned cookies Matoya gives the Light Warriors. Absolutely hilarious.
• And in Elfland:
  Fighter: Wait, Let Me Get This Straight.... So Thief is the elf formerly known as Prince?
  Black Mage: Killing you is going to be the greatest moment of my life.
• And in the next strip, Doctor Malpractice gets stuck while trying to escape through the bathroom window as the light warriors listen from outside:
  Doctor Malpractice: Darn it! I KNEW this would happen. I'm FAR too big. I need some help in here, but who would want to actually DO that?! Dammit, I thought elves were supposed to be scrawny twig boys! Argh! Now I'm all tangled up in my robes! I hope I can get un-tangled before I make a mess of things. If I wasn't so big, this wouldn't be a problem.
• White Mage says that she doesn't know whether the Light Warriors are alive or not. Cue this.
• The Quiet Game episode, especially how it finally ended.

2004

• From the invasion of Dwarfland arc:
  Thief: Ack! Beard-shaped parasites are eating their faces!
  Black Mage: Kill 'em all! Let the flames sort it out!
  • Another example from that arc:
    Red Mage: I'm going to be in front this time, so no more-
    Black Mage: (laser-eyes the village, setting it on fire)
    Red Mage: Come on. Now you're just doing it to annoy me. You don't even HAVE heat vision.
    Black Mage: (shrugs) Meh.
  • The whole arc was Comedic Sociopathy!
    Dwarf: By Moradin's beard! Why do only our homes and children burn?!
    BM (winking): Because it seemed excessively cruel!
    
    Dwarf: Everything I love is combustible!
    
    Dwarf: Why aren't I dead yet?
• This older one is also very funny. Demonstrating Black Mage's logical approach to things:
  Red Mage: (...) You're a mass-murdering psycho!
  Beat Panel
  Black Mage: If you think about it, that's really their problem.
• Black Mage's reaction on meeting Vilbert.
  Black Mage: Can we kill him now? He's a goth, it's what he wants.
• Possibly Fighter's greatest line.
  Victor Von Vampire: Are you ready?
  Red Mage: I was BORN ready.
  Fighter: I was born naked and screaming.
  Black Mage: And if all goes according to plan, you'll die that way too.
• Vilbert von Vampire, the LARPer. The Light Warriors have to go along with his arbitrary set of rules to fight him. Hilarity Ensues when it dawns on Fighter that he's...well, a vampire. So he goes to get an appropriate weapon...
  Fighter: (swinging a chunk of a fence with a cow on it) COWBONG! (Clobbers Vilbert)
  Black Mage: A WOODEN STAKE!
  Fighter: I know; what do you think the fence post is for? I'm not stupid.
  Black Mage: That's not a stake.
  Fighter: Well, no, not yet. (turns Black Mage around to shoot fire at the down Vilbert and Cow on a stick) Now it's Wood in Steak.
  Black Mage: How did you...
  Fighter: It's just a half-circle from back to front. Simple.
  Black Mage: But...that spell...you can't...I don't...what?
  • Red Mage notes how Black Mage has finally lost it from constant exposure to Fighter...
    Black Mage: (staring at the fire) Wooden Stake. Wood in Steak...
    • (and then later goes on to discuss about how cool Sword-Chucks are.)
  • Vilbert is equally baffled:
    Vilbert: (after launching the burning cow from underneath with a Shoryuken) Fighter, first, you didn't engage in a physical challenge.
    (Shows a building with a sign: "Third Annual Hindu Vegetarian Club Meeting (Picnic and Fun!!)" and the Wood in Steak flying down towards it.
    Fighter: You try balancing a cow on the end of a fence post and swinging it like a club! That's a damn physical challenge!
• Sometime later, Lich came home to see the Light Warriors stabbing Vilbert repeatedly with the Armoire of Invincibility. Lich is mocked by both Red Mage and Black Mage.
  Red Mage: I don't know what you guys are so worried about. He looks like easy prey. He's probably got low evasion and defense. I mean, he's a sack of bones. Even Skeletor, who is easily more incompetent than Cobra Commander, has a fleshy exterior. How hard could it be?
  Skeletor: You'll never defeat He-Man without skin, skully!
  Lich: You mock the Lich King? All that is living turns to ash in the presence of the Lich. I am the beauty of decay, the perfection of death. All that is born lives only to die. And in death, shall you serve a new master. Lich! So face me, oh warriors, and know the horror of perfection!
  Black Mage: (flippantly, dismimssively) Yes, yes, the lord of the dead shall inherit the greatest kingdom given enough time. Now hush; the adults are talking.
  Lich: What.
• A visual gag: Whale Vulture! The title also includes a Shout-Out to Weebl & Bob's Badger Badger Badger.
• After the rest of the group leaves Black Mage behind with a monster, they discuss how he's going to follow them (Fighter thinks they're going back, the rest are trying to ditch him), when suddenly BM flies through the air and lands in front of them, and gives us this.
  Black Mage: I found out what zombies are weak against.
  Red Mage: Oh?
  Black Mage: Point blank annihilation.
  • After Black Mage gets back from killing the orc zombie and promptly passes out from flying into the ground at high speeds:
  Red Mage: Oh, he's dead.
  Thief: No, just passed out.
  Red Mage: [pulls out a sword] I am never wrong.
• This.
  Thief: "HOW DO YOU MISS A VOLCANO?!"
  Narrator: "A Planet in the same orbit on the other side of the Sun..."
  "Where giant lizards rule...'
• Fighter managing to make several 'bear' jokes one after the other, successfully pissing off Black Mage.
• Black Mage and Fighter come upon the door to Kary's lair, which is suspiciously similar to the dwarf doors of Moria, except that the password to the riddle is really a complex physics/cosmology question (see the wikipedia for the details) and only Fighter can understand it. And then the door opens and it turns out Black Belt managed to solve it.
• This whole comic is funny, but all of Red Mage's lines are brilliant:
  It shoots fire from its mouth and bleeds acidic lava! Run for your pathetic lives!
  Use your weapons, they are designed to inflict damage!
  Our weapons are useless, reliance upon them is death!
  It has exposed its weak, fleshy underbelly to me in the form of its digestive tract!
• Sword-Chucks, yo.
• Fighter discerning he had defeated gravity by surviving an airship crash. And proceeding to fly. Red Mage promptly breaks. (link)
  Fighter: Don't you see? With gravity slain, now we can FLY! *flies off*
  Thief: Huh.
  Red Mage: But he. You can't. Love, hate, clouds.*collapses*
  Thief: White Mage, Black Mage! Something bad has happened to physics. I'll need your help re-estabishing order to the universe after I'm done with RM's wallet.
  • But it just turns out to be Sarda jackassing them over to his place. Although, anyone time someone refers to Sarda's actions as jackassing is kinda funny in itself.

2005

• *KABOOM* "Yar? ...Must be Explodin' Tuesday." and "WHY WOULD IT EXPLODE?"
• "There is a map to Swordtown on the other side of this note." Yee!
• The entirety of Red Mage's "cold fusion" plan. Long story short, the Light Warriors were shipwrecked in the tundra and Red Mage set out to find a way to keep warm. The results were one of his stupidest plans in the entire comic:
  Red Mage: Right. So, based on the principle of hot air being hot, as Black Mage alluded to, I took it upon myself to investigate the source of hot air as a concept. Long, brilliant story of analytical genius short: Heat comes from energy. The greatest source of energy is fusion. So, in a stunning leap of mental power, I constructed our own fusion generator out of what I could find.
  Thief: There's nothing but ice for thousands and thousands of miles.
  Red Mage: How else do you propose to create cold fusion?
  One Gilligan Cut later...
  Black Mage: You've created a giant block of ice.
  Red Mage: In the form of a cold fusion reactor, yes.
  Black Mage: Er, of course. Now, explain how this was going to help us survive?
  Red Mage: Given: fusion creates energy. Energy then begets heat. Therefore, cold fusion makes cold energy that gives off cold heat.
  Black Mage: What?
  Red Mage: But since we want warm, or "non-imaginary" forms of heat, we'd have to reverse it. The opposite of cold fusion is cold fission. See? That's why I needed Fighter. He was going to split the ice. Cold fission would make hot cold, and warm us in this desolate place. [Beat] He'd split it with his sword.
  Black Mage: Oh, I get it.
  Red Mage: Now that Fighter is down, we'll have to try something else.
  Thief: Like take advantage of the fact that ice is a natural insulator of heat and hollow out an ice shelter to block the bitter winds that are assaulting us.
  Red Mage: Thief, this is no time for your crazy voodoo physics. Ice is cold, so it would insulate coldness. No, our task is clear. We must build an even larger block of ice to push this one onto Fighter's sword at a precise angle thus splitting it to unleash precious cold fission energies.
  Black Mage: [to Thief] I should like to hire you for an assassination, good sir.
  Thief: Oh, no. This one is free of charge. I insist.
  • Just a reminder that Thief is insisting on providing something for free. Thief.
  • Then, when they return to Sarda...
  Sarda: I trust you were successful in your mission to acquire the precious cold fusion reactor.
• Thief hears about the quest given to the other Light Warriors by Bahamut:
  Thief: So you morons met the god of dragons.
  Red Mage: He's also their king. He was very clear on that.
  [...]
  Thief: Okay, you met this god and/or king who lives in a dank hole in the ground, and he asked you to get the tail of a rat for him.
  Black Mage: That about sums it up.
  Thief: This dragon. Was he, by any chance, a hobo in a dragon suit?
• This little exchange between Fighter and Black Mage.
  Fighter: Hey Black Mage. Did you happen to see Dr. Swordopolis?
  Black Mage: Dr. Who?
  Fighter: No, no. Swordopolis. *A picture appears of Dr. Swordopolis wearing a scarf, and the Ninth Doctor wearing the same pair of glasses, appears.* But the resemblance is uncanny.
• Red Mage kills a dinosaur... with logic:
  Dinosaur: How can dinosaur hunting be your primary purpose? We're extinct.
  Red Mage: Then explain yourself.
  (The dinosaur gets an Oh, Crap! look on his face, then spontaneously combusts)
  Red Mage: Exactly.
• Thief decides that the best way to prove that Bahamut isn't real is to simply do this obvious mannequin any number of disservices. What makes it a true joy is Bahamut's calm and abiding patience, up to a certain point.
  Thief: So playing its hollow skull like the bongos will prove my point. Slicing its wings. Flipping its ears. Setting it aflame.
• Oh, people cough for hours after they die. (...) And stand up. And... change their clothes?

2006

• After Black Mage gets kicked in the nuts by a decidedly non-goblin creature:
  Red Mage: Oh, the dreaded goblin punch!
  Thief: You call it a goblin punch. Even though it was very clearly a kick. And there isn't a goblin within a thousand mile radius.
  Red Mage: What? That's the name of the move as chronicled by the greatest cryptozoologist in red mage history: Blindy O'Sightless.
  Thief: The more I learn about you, the more it makes sense.
  Red Mage: That's a good thing, right?
  • In the very next comic, Black Mage puts his newly learned...er, "Goblin Punch" to great effect.
    Black Mage: (running as fast as he can) INNA NERTS!
    (Mushroom cloud explosion panel, indicating that Black Mage has kicked the target into orbit)
• Black Mage's repeated assaults on Fighter's cranium start having an effect:
  Thief: Looks like that stab to the head wasn't so bad after all.
  Fighter: You get used to it after the first dozen times. Dozen times. Dozen times. Dozen times.
  • And two comics later:
    Thief: Where's Red Mage?
    Black Mage: He's diligently working to get us off this island.
    Thief: I assume you authorized this.
    Black Mage: No, Fighter did.
    Fighter: Dozen times.
• Red Mage and Bestiality
• The "stuck on an island" arc. All of Red Mage's attempts at chocobo transportation/genetic engineering/surgery.
  Red Mage (after creating a horribly mutated chocobo): All it required was a cocktail of dangerous experimental surgery and a willingness to ignore the unnecessary suffering of perfectly innocent beings! Also, I shot magic into their chromosomes until they turned inside-out. Evolution is my bitch.
  • The icing on the cake was Black Mage's Eye Take and awkward glancing back and forth, just TRYING to think of what the hell to say.
    Red Mage: Behold the fruits of genius!
    [Cut to the horrific chocobo]
    Black Mage: [after aforementioned Eye Take and awkward glancing] What is it?!
    Red Mage: We went over this. Fruits of genius.
• After they finally get off the island, and end up going on a long roundabout trip to finally get back to Circle Cave, Sarda teleports them back to him just as they reach the cave's entrance. Black Mage is understandably furious, asking if Sarda could have done that at any time. Sarda says no he couldn't, "just any time he felt like it." Cue Black Mage having a complete meltdown.
  Red Mage: I'd say his moral framework just snapped, but what moral framework?
• Damn my wits!
• Black Mage explains the widespread destruction to White Mage.
• Episode 726: That Sinking Feeling
  Red Mage: *standing in a sinking submarine* Oh, please. Death is for NPCs. I'll just pop the drain and let all the water out.
  Black Mage: Think about that for a minute. What is going to rush in here and drown us instantly when you do that?
  Red Mage: Nothing because it's the perfect plan?
  Black Mage: *grimaces for a panel* No, think harder.
  • Made even funnier when Fighter goes and does exactly what Red Mage proposed.
• "Glorious leader, we have found a queen for you!"
  Black Mage: I have made a grave miscalculation here.
  • And then Black Mage's Beat Panel reaction, after Red Mage says he supports Black Mage's decision.
  • Black Mage's plan fails, so he resorts to murder.
  BM: Maybe if you shut your airhole occasionally, you might pick up some pointers from me in the twin arts of subterfuge and wantonity.
  Thief: So they saw right through your disguise.
  BM: Like a window.

2007

• Black Mage forgetting the definition of murder, and having to have it reminded to him by Red Mage and Fighter.
• "Montage!"
• Setting: a quiet village where a gang of anonymous men posing as adventurers are raping people. Cue Red Mage leaping down from above: I HAVE TO SHOW YOU WHAT'S IN MY POCKET! IT WILL MAKE EVERYTHING BETTER!
• Red Mage suggests selling "starmetal" from the asteroid Black Mage dropped. Black Mage laughs at him. Red Mage suddenly transforms five chunks of the asteroid into metal.
  Black Mage: I believe in magic and that still made no sense.
  Red Mage: In the arena of logic, I fight unarmed.
• The arc where the team's diversion from their supposed mission was to run up an extortion racket after routing both the town guard and the mafia.
  Bank Teller: This is a robbery?
  Thief: No, robbery is what my friends are doing. (Beat Panel) Robbery and some murder.
  Bank Teller: This bank is oozing with magic alarms! The city guard will be here any minute!
  Thief: There's something tragic and hilarious you don't know about that.
  • And later in that arc:
    Thief: Our protection racket is great, but providing concrete incentives to be protected would be great.
    Red Mage: So...we're going to rob them now?
    Thief: Yes.
    Black Mage: How is that different from what we've been doing all along?
    Thief: Very slightly.
  • Until the whole thing comes to an end with:
    Black Mage: Just cooperate, or we'll do this.
    (nuclear explosion panel)
    Thief: There is such a thing as being too illustrative.
• "I'm a drownball champ!". Sarda, the immortal sage, cannot process it. Also, there's this gem from Red Mage (interrupted by a stabbing)
  Red Mage: This is a job for glass blowing! It's a blow—
• "Die, ants, die!"
• "Why hasn't Black Mage stabbed you in the back of the neck yet?" "I know, right? Hope he's feeling okay."
  • Also, Black Mage sees a dragon.
    Black Mage: Teeth like daggers. Eyes...also like daggers.
    Fighter: How does that work?
    Thief: Piercing gaze?
    Fighter: You're just on fire today!
• Black Mage's flowchart at the end of this strip.To wit:
  Thief: Hm, the cannon fodder angle. I can get behind that.
  Red Mage: It's certainly no good being in front of it.

2008

• Fighter on invisible sky castles.
  Black Mage: Does that LOOK like an invisible sky castle?
  Fighter: Sure, maybe. I've never seen one.
  Black Mage: Can you imagine why?
  Fighter: (Thinks it over for several panels)
  Fighter: Because they're quite rare?
  Black Mage: I...You...
  Thief: Technically he's not wrong, you know.
  Black Mage: But he SHOULD be.
• Sarda and his Healing Shiv.
  Sarda: I turned the spear into a healing spear. Like this healing shiv. (stabs Thief) Or maybe that's my regular shiv.
• The creation of the Sardapedia:
  Red Mage: But where we start?
  Sarda: Temple of Fiends.
  Thief: But that's a temple, not a castle.
  Sarda: Temple's a kind of castle. Everyone in the world knows that. It's in the Sardapedia. See?
  Sardapedia: "castle (tem-puhl) - noun: Where the goddamn Light Warriors are going."
• The dragons in the Temple of Fiends.
  Dragon: BLARG! I'M A DRAGON! OR TWELVE!
  Red Mage: Impossible! Only a maximum of nine enemies may be onscreen!
  Dragon: FUCK YOU.
  Red Mage: Run.
  • Made even better by the fact that just before that Black Mage said the worst thing they'd find was a stairway without handrails. In the last panel, they're falling down the stairs.
    • And masterfully called back to in the epilogue:
      Menu: TWELVE DRAGON NACHOS: Piled so high with topping there's only room for nine on the plate!
• The whole of the Glorious Chainsaw Method ability:
  Red Mage: Fighter! (holds out index card) Do as the card commands!
  (Beat Panel)
  Red Mage: ...Fighter?
  Fighter: It hasn't said anything yet...
  Black Mage: Take the card and then read the card.
  Fighter: (does so) 'Kay.
  (BZZZRR!)
  Red Mage: Should have probably told Black Mage to get out of the way.
  (Black Mage gets back to his feet)
  Black Mage: WHAT. DID YOU WRITE. ON THAT CARD.^note The answer is "Make your swords become like things unto chainsaws."
• Red Mage freezing the team to keep them from being killed by the Ice Dragon? Funny. Expecting Black Mage to come and thaw them out with one of his many fire spells? Funny in a very pitiable way. Black Mage dropping out of his current fiery rampage to stare at the now frozen Light Warriors for two panels before going far in the background to deliberately squander more fire spells at everything but the ice block? Priceless.
  • Even better is how they do finally get out of the ice.
• The Dark Warriors discuss the finer points of Black Mage's change of allegiance.
  Bikke: No, it be making the mathemalogical sense.
  Drizz'l: Bikke. Two plus two.
  Bikke: Cantaloupe.
• Red Mage's tale of defeating a monster through the "vigorous" use of animal husbandry.
  "Each was more prehensile than the last!"
• BEHOLD MY HUMAN LASER!
  • I HAVE NO LASERS, AND I WILL LASER TO DEATH ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE.
• Then there was this and this. You can't solve everything with a vote.

  Thief: Oh dear ever-handsome elf-gods, are we actually stupid enough to have voted on nothing at all?

• Appointing the oversight committee.
  D'rizzl: One of them can't read or count, and the other one's Fighter.
  Bikke: Which one be ye?
  D'rizzl: Yeah, we're in good hands.
• The Light Warriors, Dark Warriors, and Other Warriors hold a vote to rearrange the teams; somehow, the end result features Fighter as a member of every team simultaneously. One team even consists solely of Bikke with three instances of Fighter.
• "I was right. That didn't make sense."

2009

• Will you stop looking into the ancient insanity box already!
• Three arrows in a single bow? Nothing out of the ordinary. Two bows with three arrows each? Funny. Two bows with three arrows each, per hand? Comedy gold. The right reaction to such absurdity? Downright hilarious!
  Onion Kid: What happened to that arrow guy?
  Sarda: Oh, him? He went home. Forever.
• Black Mage and Thief discuss the finer details of being dead
• The Drizzt Syndrome character's Un Reveal:
  Drizz'l: I'm going to be the bigger elf here. I'm not even upset.
  Drizz'l: Mostly because I have FIENDS!
  (cut to empty hallway)
  Drizz'l (downcast): Just not WITH me.
• In one comic, Black Mage, after being threatened with certain death against some fiends, mockingly claims that he's so scared that he's about to shit Thief's pants. Sounds like just a weird insult, until the next comic. Note Thief's annoyance and BM's apology after the fiends show up. BM wasn't just kidding, apparently.
  Thief: That's super. Now I have to ninja up some laundry.
• "Kary, why don't you show this pile of hair what you think of his little fire helm?" (beat) "That's not what I meant."
• Red Mage explains Thief's trick to Black Mage:
  Red Mage: Meanwhile Thief was lying about his pants problem so he could reconnoiter the enemy without raising suspicion.
  Black Mage: You were dead, and on fire, and a hat when that happened, how do you know?
  Red Mage: It's one of the oldest tricks in the book.
  (Beat Panel shows book titled "Illustrated Guide to Scatalogical Tricks")
  Red Mage: It's a really weird book.
• "Where did you get your class change from?" "I stole it. From the future."
  • Speaking of the Class Change, the costume Black Mage gets is not the one of the Black Wizard class, which does not have the iconic hat in the original version (though the comic characters actually uses sprites from FF3 anyway), but that of the Magus class from FF3. Unfortunately for him, said costume has baggy MC Hammer pants and a bell on its hat.
    White Mage: Even your wardrobe is a statement about the repulsiveness of violence through image.
    Black Mage: No, this is just what I wear now.
    White Mage: Oh. I'm sorry to hear that.
• I knew that would happen, but I'm mad about it anyway.
• Red Mage's A-Hole.
  Black Mage: Where in the hell are we?
  Red Mage: My A-hole.
  Black Mage: Goddammit, Red Mage...
  • Followed immediately by this exchange.
    Red Mage: So deep are we (within my A-hole) that Sarda will never find us no matter how thoroughly or how vigorously he probes my A-hole.
    Black Mage: Can you say things without talking? Is that...Can we do that? Please?
    Red Mage: What's wrong? All I'm saying is that we're deep, deep in my A-hole.
    Black Mage: Stop using that word!
    Red Mage: O...kay.
    Black Mage: Thank you.
    Red Mage: Would you prefer to say that we are in my B-hole^note can be construed as "bunghole" or "butthole" then? Either is accurate.
    Black Mage: I'm...not sure what that could refer to, and it makes me worried.
    • And followed up again several episodes later.
    Black Mage: Ah-ha! I knew it would work. All we had to do was turn Red Mage's A-hole inside-out. And explain to Fighter that you can't do that with swords. And what we meant by "Red Mage's A-hole."
• This whole conversation.
  Black Mage: They're trying to kill me!
  Fighter: That's a shame (turns against Red Mage and Thief)
  Red Mage: But we have a good reason!
  Fighter: (goes back to Red Mage and Thief's side) Sorry, Black Mage, but you heard the man.
  Black Mage: "A good reason" isn't a good reason at all!
  Red Mage: We need to use your heart.
  Black Mage: So do I! It moves my blood around!
  Red Mage: Not if we kill you!
  Black Mage: That's distressingly logical.
• Black Mage sums up Red Mage's plan to escape his A-hole.
  Black Mage: So you want us to build a thing that's the size of everything using nothing.
  Red Mage: Yes.
  Black Mage: Twice.
  Red Mage: Yes.
  (cue Black Mage's traditional WTF expression)
• Sarda vs the Dark Warriors.
  Garland: Oh, we'll show YOU adorable!
  Sarda: ... Yes, you sure did.
• The epileptic llama attack.
  Drizz'l: What was that?! WHAT WAS THAT?!
  Vilbert: I don't understand what happened!
  Sarda: It would be worse if you did.
  
  Garland:So was that a goat, or...?
  Sarda: Y'know, I've never asked.
• The Light Warriors are about to face Sarda while he is "charging" the power of the Orbs into himself. Black Mage and Thief run away, taking Fighter with them, leaving Red Mage alone with Sarda. RM says that this is quite normal, and Sarda replies "Preaching to the choir." Red Mage asks if Sarda is sympathetic to his plight. Cue Evil Laugh.
• "Any fate we can walk into because we're not dead is a better one than we had ten minutes ago."
• Sarda conclusively proves that he has not taken the Evil Overlord List to heart.
  Sarda: This... will not be... [...] My plans will not be undone by such amateur-hour horseshit as absorbing too much power and exploding. [...] I am Sarda. My will be done. [...] *BOOM*
• Simply because of the buildup beforehand (and spoilered for that reason, though it is also a huge spoiler if you read the page):
  Fighter: I thought Sarda had a mustache.
• Red Mage hatches a plan to defeat Chaos.
  Red Mage: I can fix all of this.
  Black Mage: Ohhh, no you don't. If I have to listen to one more of your word salads in the guise of a plan, I will kill myself so hard it will kill you instead.
  Red Mage: No, no, no. This is so stupid it's completely foolproof.
  Black Mage: That's not how stupid works! There's a critical mass of stupidity beyond which no additional amount of stupid will improve your chances for success!
• "Your faerie shat itself!"
• "Episode 1192: Closure":
  Red Mage: Maybe we're trying too hard.
  Thief: We've never done that and you goddamn know it.
  • "QUEST COMPLETE!", and this...
    Red Mage: Well, yeah. But I mean, maybe we can't make our own quests. We have to find them out there in the world. Roaming free, pure, beautiful.
    Beat Panel, as Black Mage and Thief share a weird look*
    Black Mage: That got a little weird at the end.
• The expression on the guy's face in the third panel of this strip, combined with this gem from Black Mage:
  Black Mage: "Saved your life, lady! He was a monster! I'll prove it to you — when I carve his mask off he'll look totally gross."

2010

• "So this is what it's like when he makes you too stupid to think."
• "Obstacle course? Mo' like KA-BOOM course!"
• And now Red Mage's latest plan to kill Chaos by stupiding him to death.
• Black Mage taking out the Nintendo Power issue in here which he had already taking out here. It also counts as a Moment of Awesome for being the longest set up in a webcomic, lasting 9 years and 1214 strips.
• "Chaos! You're too tall!"

• Three Years Later...
  • White Mage meets Red Mage and Dragoon at a TGIF-type restaurant with a Dark Warriors theme, due to them having been given the credit for Chaos's defeat, with the servers dressed up as Garland, Bicke, and for some reason, Matroya and King Steve. It serves meals such as Rat-Tail Soup and Twelve-Dragon Nachos.
  • One of the patrons is the incredibly poorly made dummy of Thief Dr. Malpractice used to fool the elven court back during the Dark Elf arc.
  • Red Mage and Dragoon have formed a support group for adventurers like them who are the sole survivors of their respective organizations, but membership has hit a brick wall. Dragoon thinks the name is the problem.
  Red Mage: Look, we're Sects Buddies, okay? That's not going to change!
  • Red Mage can somehow eat with his mask on.
  • Thief is now the King Of Elfland, and is stuck dealing with a Deadly Decadent Court, leading to him asking White Mage to keep quiet about some of the more humiliating moments of the Light Warriors adventures. He also has a very important question about the Light Warriors being given some credit in the defeat of Chaos.
  Thief: Is there gold in it?
  White Mage: You get a plaque.
  Thief: A gold plaque?
  White Mage: No, Thief.
  • It turns out Thief also has people looking for Fighter and Black Mage, but mostly so he can further trick them out of any money they might have.
  • Meanwhile, Figher and Black Mage are right back Where It All Began, looking for random jobs in a small town. Fighter suggests they go looking for that Armor Of Invincibility they never found.

Unsorted

• Thief dismisses the supposed hauntedness of the woods they're in:
  Thief: We're not too worried, thanks. I'd like to think I know my way around a forest. Y'know, since the essence of my being resonates with the very concept of "forest." And frankly, I've seen darker wood in elf porn.
  (Black Mage immediately throws up.)
  Ranger: Your elf eyes do see the living forest itself, that much is clear to me. But there is much more that you cannot see.
  Black Mage: Man, and I didn't lose it when I caught a glimpse of an elder god defecating.
  Fighter: (looking down) You got it on my shoes.
  Black Mage: It shat out advertising executives. They're the bowel obstruction that killed the old universe.

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