Virus mask. One would think that is a mask that will cover your nose and mouth and help protect those around you. But this is a mask that looks like the virus! And now the virus has fallen in love with you!
You gotta read the words on the box in the first panel: “Virus Mask” makes you think of a mask you wear over over face to hinder the spread of the virus.
Instead, the mask is of the Halloween variety that it makes you look like whatever it says on the box. (That is, a monster mask makes you look like a monster, so a virus mask makes you look like a virus.)
And the “virus mask” is so effective that, just as a wolfman mask might attract the attention of a real lady wolf-woman, this virus mask attracts the heart of a real (lady?) virus.
SB: I also wondered why BA was dragging Mr. T into this discussion.
I must say that my way of coping with upsetting subjects is akin to Mr. Tatulli’s. I understand it can be tiresome.
@Nathan deGargoyle: They’re not funny, is why. In a time when many people are sick or dead or are dealing with lingering effects, some levity could be welcome. However, Mr. Tatulli has not made many jokes that find any common humanity and help us laugh together (though the one shown here is mildly clever, I think). Instead, he’s gone of the same approach as your typical edgy-teen, thinking being shocking or hurtful is funny. Like crashing a funeral in a red and yellow bodypaint and doing cartwheels past the coffin while screaming “Bob was an a-hole”.
Not for me, as I lived fairly close to where this happened and remembe well the outrage. But yeah, 1987 . . . ah, those were the ‘good ol’ days’, altho we didn’t know it then.
AND this event was uppermost in my mind because a new neighbor, after moving into this subdivision called Tarpon WOODS, proceeded to cut down EVERY TREE IN HIS YARD. WHY?? Why move into a house with a beautiful yard and lovely (healthy) trees, and then cut them all down??? Unfathomable, to me. So now I have to spent $2000 to have tall bushes planted along the fence where he cut down the ones that shielded our yard from his (fences are limited to 6 feet; hedges have no limit). Since the rescinding of the ‘permit to cut down trees’ law, the amount of lumberjacking in this ‘wooded’ subdivision has been heartbreaking.
But this is Lio! He’s had strips in the past with kids being eaten by monsters and finding the remains of Calvin and Hobbes. Of course he’s edgy. That’s the strip.
Did Barry Lyndon cut down trees? I thought he was too busy seducing women, fighting duels, etc. And No, I’ve no idea what the neighbor’s name is, nor do I care to ever know.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Well, it’s obvious Mark Tatulli loves making comics about it.
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Virus mask. One would think that is a mask that will cover your nose and mouth and help protect those around you. But this is a mask that looks like the virus! And now the virus has fallen in love with you!
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Maybe Lio’s just getting ready early for Halloween. No one’s ever suggested that Lio was funny. Most of the time, it’s not.
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You gotta read the words on the box in the first panel: “Virus Mask” makes you think of a mask you wear over over face to hinder the spread of the virus.
Instead, the mask is of the Halloween variety that it makes you look like whatever it says on the box. (That is, a monster mask makes you look like a monster, so a virus mask makes you look like a virus.)
Just a pun with a visual gag.
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And the “virus mask” is so effective that, just as a wolfman mask might attract the attention of a real lady wolf-woman, this virus mask attracts the heart of a real (lady?) virus.
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Andréa, I have to wonder what Mr. T would be doing if there hadn’t been a virus.
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The devil you know…
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B.A., he would be pitying fools.
*For foreigners and children who do not understand my geezer pop-culture references
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SB: I also wondered why BA was dragging Mr. T into this discussion.
I must say that my way of coping with upsetting subjects is akin to Mr. Tatulli’s. I understand it can be tiresome.
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Clearly, those among us who can spell “Tatulli” don’t pity us fools who can’t .
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Wait a minute. “B. A.”? As in “B. A. Baracus?” It’s been Mr. T all along!
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“Andréa, I have to wonder what Mr. T would be doing if there hadn’t been a virus.”
I wondered the same . . . BLM, perhaps?
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The ‘real’ Mr. T would be cutting down trees.
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I don’t understand why some people dislike Tatulli so much. He reacts to a scary situation by laughing at it. Seems like a good thing to me.
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Because pretty much all Tatulli has done since the virus is a variation on the same joke.
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@Andréa: That a is a pretty obscure geezer reference. https://apnews.com/a05f53f35d90ea89eb5ed2dea26082f6
@Nathan deGargoyle: They’re not funny, is why. In a time when many people are sick or dead or are dealing with lingering effects, some levity could be welcome. However, Mr. Tatulli has not made many jokes that find any common humanity and help us laugh together (though the one shown here is mildly clever, I think). Instead, he’s gone of the same approach as your typical edgy-teen, thinking being shocking or hurtful is funny. Like crashing a funeral in a red and yellow bodypaint and doing cartwheels past the coffin while screaming “Bob was an a-hole”.
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SB: not ‘funny’, cathartic.
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“That a is a pretty obscure geezer reference.”
Not for me, as I lived fairly close to where this happened and remembe well the outrage. But yeah, 1987 . . . ah, those were the ‘good ol’ days’, altho we didn’t know it then.
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AND this event was uppermost in my mind because a new neighbor, after moving into this subdivision called Tarpon WOODS, proceeded to cut down EVERY TREE IN HIS YARD. WHY?? Why move into a house with a beautiful yard and lovely (healthy) trees, and then cut them all down??? Unfathomable, to me. So now I have to spent $2000 to have tall bushes planted along the fence where he cut down the ones that shielded our yard from his (fences are limited to 6 feet; hedges have no limit). Since the rescinding of the ‘permit to cut down trees’ law, the amount of lumberjacking in this ‘wooded’ subdivision has been heartbreaking.
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But this is Lio! He’s had strips in the past with kids being eaten by monsters and finding the remains of Calvin and Hobbes. Of course he’s edgy. That’s the strip.
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Andréa: Is your new neighbor named Barry Lyndon by any chance?
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Did Barry Lyndon cut down trees? I thought he was too busy seducing women, fighting duels, etc. And No, I’ve no idea what the neighbor’s name is, nor do I care to ever know.
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