Is this a reference to an actual Metal music artist?
Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I think I heard that cowboys used to sing songs at night in part to calm down their cattle. I guess the artist assumes this is common enough knowledge that his/her readers would find it hilarious that these guys are using death metal to do it. How humorously shocking and utterly contrary to what I would have expected!
Maybe not. Maybe there’s more to it. I hope so, actually.
Supposedly cowboys play guitar and sing at night to calm the cattle. One wouldn’t expect cattle to be calmed by screaming death metal, but apparently these particular steers are fans.
I think I’ve seen it in Western movies, where the other cowboys ask Gene Autry or Roy Rogers or whoever to sing a song for the restless cattle. That part I get. I don’t know about the abyss.
I have no real justification for why this is funny, but it made me LOL.
I thought at first “The Abyss” was supposed to be the James Cameron watery deeps film, but on further refelction it is more likely just to be the general abyss of despair/ black pit of terror/ bottomless chasm of despond.
Since the abyss is where “the kraken sleepeth”, music from there probably acts as a lullaby.
And as Nietzsche said, altho I don’t think he meant this about cattle: “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.” The tormentor becomes the tormented. People become what they love and hate, because their mind focuses on it.
If Metal music is from hell (the abyss), then the abyss line is cleared up, right? I think everyone else here has the right idea with the cowboy lullabies.
I think you should start a new folder for “comics that no one understands” CNOU
Would this comic even work for anybody who didn’t grow up with those old westerns?
To half-answer Bob Peters’ Q at the top, I don’t know if DeathScream is a real artist but it does appear to be a website for heavy metal music: http://deathscream.net/ . Less amusingly, Death Scream is the name of a 1970s movie about the 1960s incident in which Kitty Genovese was murdered but (apparently at the time, less certain now) lots of witnesses heard her being murdered but did nothing to help.
I watched a few cowboy TV series and films in the 60s and 70s as a kid, though I must admit I never picked up on the idea of the cowboys lullabying the cattle. So on that front the cartoon didn’t immediately make sense without the CIDU Notes provided here.
Cowboys didn’t just randomly sing to calm the cattle. They sang as they were riding herd on the cattle at night, because otherwise a sudden noise might startle them into a stampede.
“Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I think I heard that cowboys used to sing songs at night in part to calm down their cattle.”
One of the Lonesome Dove movies had the cowboys singing to the herd. One was a former Confederate, he would sing “Bonnie Blue Flag”.
And here I thought the singing cowboy meme from those old westerns was just an excuse for dual fame as actors and as singers, both of the cowboy variety.
When you play metal music for your cattle, will they throw up the horns in approval?
@Jordan: Excellent!
On another note, is that a Swiss-cheese moon in the back there, à la George Herriman? Doesn’t work as well if the moon’s not a crescent.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Is this a reference to an actual Metal music artist?
Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I think I heard that cowboys used to sing songs at night in part to calm down their cattle. I guess the artist assumes this is common enough knowledge that his/her readers would find it hilarious that these guys are using death metal to do it. How humorously shocking and utterly contrary to what I would have expected!
Maybe not. Maybe there’s more to it. I hope so, actually.
Supposedly cowboys play guitar and sing at night to calm the cattle. One wouldn’t expect cattle to be calmed by screaming death metal, but apparently these particular steers are fans.
I think I’ve seen it in Western movies, where the other cowboys ask Gene Autry or Roy Rogers or whoever to sing a song for the restless cattle. That part I get. I don’t know about the abyss.
I have no real justification for why this is funny, but it made me LOL.
I thought at first “The Abyss” was supposed to be the James Cameron watery deeps film, but on further refelction it is more likely just to be the general abyss of despair/ black pit of terror/ bottomless chasm of despond.
Since the abyss is where “the kraken sleepeth”, music from there probably acts as a lullaby.
And as Nietzsche said, altho I don’t think he meant this about cattle: “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.” The tormentor becomes the tormented. People become what they love and hate, because their mind focuses on it.
If Metal music is from hell (the abyss), then the abyss line is cleared up, right? I think everyone else here has the right idea with the cowboy lullabies.
I think you should start a new folder for “comics that no one understands” CNOU
Would this comic even work for anybody who didn’t grow up with those old westerns?
To half-answer Bob Peters’ Q at the top, I don’t know if DeathScream is a real artist but it does appear to be a website for heavy metal music: http://deathscream.net/ . Less amusingly, Death Scream is the name of a 1970s movie about the 1960s incident in which Kitty Genovese was murdered but (apparently at the time, less certain now) lots of witnesses heard her being murdered but did nothing to help.
I watched a few cowboy TV series and films in the 60s and 70s as a kid, though I must admit I never picked up on the idea of the cowboys lullabying the cattle. So on that front the cartoon didn’t immediately make sense without the CIDU Notes provided here.
Cowboys didn’t just randomly sing to calm the cattle. They sang as they were riding herd on the cattle at night, because otherwise a sudden noise might startle them into a stampede.
“Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I think I heard that cowboys used to sing songs at night in part to calm down their cattle.”
One of the Lonesome Dove movies had the cowboys singing to the herd. One was a former Confederate, he would sing “Bonnie Blue Flag”.
And here I thought the singing cowboy meme from those old westerns was just an excuse for dual fame as actors and as singers, both of the cowboy variety.
When you play metal music for your cattle, will they throw up the horns in approval?
@Jordan: Excellent!
On another note, is that a Swiss-cheese moon in the back there, à la George Herriman? Doesn’t work as well if the moon’s not a crescent.