I was not so intrigued by Susan Smith’s reappearance yesterday, neither by today’s cameo by a…younger? Ed Crankshaft. Nope, what set these beady eyes to nitpicking was Ed’s peculiar POV in panel one. That angle and that distance just seem impossible on that narrow bridge. My curiosity compelled me to construct the scene from the opposite perspective:
Weird camera angles aside: so it looks like Batiuk’s gonna play the suicide card again, and for the second time on the same female character, and over the same leading man. Unbelievable. At least he knows better than to have Les come hastening after her to talk her down. Unless he’s about to leap out of Crankshaft’s bus. Speaking of old Ed, if indeed this strip is happening eleven years ago, he really went downhill between June 2011 and this cameo in June 2012!
Yesterday we ruled out some possible Pizza Monsters based simply on having an ironclad alibi, and we got some interesting guesses in the comments based on the evidence. Today I want to take a deeper look using geometry…see if we can cross a few more names off the list.
First of all the dimensions of an average large pizza box are as follows.
Now lets look at the dimensions of the Luigi’s Pizza Monster. It is made up of at least two different sizes of pizza boxes though they seem to have a similar height.
So the Luigi’s monster would be, at a very minimum, 66 inches tall…and probably a little more. Somewhere between five and a half and six feet tall.
More importantly, this monster is only about 18 inches from front to back, even though it is 32 inches wide. Assuming a human torso is roughly elliptical, and using the equation to find the area of an ellipse. A = πab. With a as the minor radius of 9 inches, and b as the major radius of 16 inches, we get an area of roughly 450 square inches, and an estimated perimeter of 80 inches, However, that is an ellipse twice as wide as it is deep, most people with an 80 inch waist would not be that flat. Unless they were some kind of horrific softshell tortoise human.
Pictured…not the Pizza Monster.
Point being. The Pizza Monster probably isn’t very fat. As can be seen in the bits of wrist or ankle we can see in various shots.
Also, did you know that the Pizza Monster this year has a different construction technique for the arms? I’m guessing it allows for better helicopter clinging and ladder climbing action.
It’s Evolving….
So, I’ll say we can safely rule out DSH John. Even though it would fit his cheap nature to use the dozens of old Montoni’s boxes he no doubt has stashed around his comic shop in order to steal yet more pizza. And even though it would have also suited his underhanded and duplicitous side to offer the services of the cosplayer Mr. Monster last year, and then use his knowledge of that friend’s cootie allergy to steal the aforementioned pizza. Poor Dead Skunk Head is just too fat and out of shape.
By the same token, we can rule out Tony, Donna, Dinkle, Harriet, a magically rejuvenated Crankshaft, and Chester Hagglemore. They’re all just too portly, old, or both to make this costume work. Especially since, on average, the Montoni’s Pizza Monster seems to use less boxes than Luigi’s.
This pointless, boring, and unreadable chart took an hour of my life I will never ever get back. No, I don’t know why I did it, but I decided that you have to know that I did.
From the hands we can also tell that Pizza Monster has a lighter skin tone, ruling out Cayla, Principal Nate, and Bernie’s two friends who maybe have names I guess.
So our culprit is white, not fat, still limber, knows Montoni’s, knows Funky, and has such a strong desire to mess with him every Halloween that they’re willing to do all of this.
What do you guys think? Any more names we can add to, or take off, of the list?
Come to Funky Winkerbean for the mesmerizingly inane plot, stay for the intense first-person envelope stuffing action! And in such detail! We almost get to see what the ingredients of Montoni’s famous salad dressing are. Alas, all we will know is that it contains ‘< of 10 em WWWW’.
Cute pun too. Nice to see that the salad dressing gift was really a prop in service of a sentiment. Provided Donna likes salad dressing, this is a perfectly adequate anniversary present for an older couple living off of the income of a single part time job at a comics shack. Certainly better than an IOU for a trip to China that is quickly forgotten.
‘Salad Days’ is such a weird idiom though. We’ve become so removed from the concrete meaning of the metaphor, that usage of the phrase keeps sliding further and further away from it’s genesis in Shakespeare. Nowadays it generally means a worry-free and pleasant time of life. Either youth, or retirement. But that’s only after evolving more times than a Pokémon.
Of course, I fell down the internet hole again on this one. It’s my specialty.
‘Salad days’ comes from a line in Shakespeare’s 1606 play, Antony and Cleopatra. But like a lot of popular Shakespearian idioms, the turn of phrase didn’t get pulled out as a stock phrase until the mid 19th century. Initially salad days was a somewhat negative expression, meaning a time of ignorant indiscretion in youth. You’re green, and cold, and will soon wilt, and so do stupid things. Like get a Star Wars tattoo or seduce Julius Caesar.
Which brings us to the origin of the phrase in the play. In Act 1 Scene V of Antony and Cleopatra, Cleo is gushing about Marc Antony, her hunky Roman boyfriend, and preparing to send dozens of messengers after him like the first century equivalent of blowing up his cell phone with texts. She asks one of her servants if she ever loved her old, now dead, Italian dressing, Julius Caesar so much.
So, you know, if Batiuk wants to go with this original allusion that’s fine. It’s nice to think that Crazy Harry and Donna will grow to disavow this time in their lives, and see themselves as stupid for ever feeling this way. And if they want to finish it all off by dying of snakebite, so much the better.
Son of Stuck Funky 