I thought it was that the 1st ghost is sad at 2nd ghost’s death. The spirit leaving the ‘body’ is actually 1st ghost’s friend (ghost #3) making light of the situation to cheer his friend up. Unfortunately, in their mirth, he floats to high and gets killed himself. First ghost now has two dead friends.
The metaphysics are definitely debatable, but as was stated by Darren, this is Buni.
“The upper right panel implies ghost of a ghost, not a new ghost.”
Yea, I think that’s the ‘joke’ the two ghosts are sharing. The 3rd ghost is pretending to be the spirit of the dead ghost. That’s how I managed to square what’s going on in this comic in my mind anyway.
“I’m not with the “friend pretending to be a ghost of ghost” theory.”
Last comment about this from me, I promise.
First of all, Brian, I hope you’re ok.
As for this theory, my thinking is that if the ghost in the coffin at the start was just going to rise again, then why is the first ghost sad, as well as being sad at the end when there are two dead ghosts? There seems to be some sort of finality here, and if that’s the case, the ghost rising from the coffin in panel 2 must be unrelated to the ghost lying there. The only explanation I can come up with is a friend pretending to be the ghost of the ghost for a laugh to lighten the mood, but then it all goes horribly wrong.
[If this looks like a reply to a comment that isn’t here, that’s exactly what it is. We decided these mild chiding remarks to the intruder were not enough, and we just deleted the obnoxious post. But I was too fond of my Hashem anecdote to see it just gone! So here is the out-of-context reply.]
Mosckerr, are you sure this is the post you actually wanted your comment to attach to? Rather than, say, “Manna, or MRE?” . Also, BTW, please be careful not to be needlessly provocative and potentially insulting — I mean in remarks like “Xtian church xxxxxxxx”. [Insult redacted]
Anyhow, your remark “Moshe, a baali t’shuva, argued with HaShem that HaShem send someone else!” reminds me of the time a school-oriented teacher tech education program I was working for had a section for teachers coming to us from a district of Jewish schools on Chicago’s North Side and some north suburbs. This was at the University of Chicago, an international and diverse place. One of the grad student assistants working for us that summer was named Hashem. The Jewish teachers were all amused or delighted (even if at first taken aback a little) to have the leaders say things like “Oh, get Hashem to help you with that” and “That’s something we’ll look to Hashem to take care of” …
[If there are readers who haven’t caught the basis for why that was amusing, know that “Hashem” is one of the words Jews can use to substitute for the Name of the deity.]
And a related anecdote — at one time the CS Dept (rather mathematical and theoretical oriented) had just one guy as the Tech Staff, to maintain the building’s network and the machines on the office desktops of faculty and grad students, as well as the semi-public homework labs for students in intro courses.
This guy was named Bob Lord. And so questions like “Do you know when the new monitors for the Suns will be installed?” could be answered “Only Lord knows!”.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Yup. It’s the old good thing/bad thing reversal of expectations story, but with (as stated, ghosts and ceiling fans).
If it were some other strip, that might disturb me more. But from Buni, it seems on tone.
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I thought it was that the 1st ghost is sad at 2nd ghost’s death. The spirit leaving the ‘body’ is actually 1st ghost’s friend (ghost #3) making light of the situation to cheer his friend up. Unfortunately, in their mirth, he floats to high and gets killed himself. First ghost now has two dead friends.
The metaphysics are definitely debatable, but as was stated by Darren, this is Buni.
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The upper right panel implies ghost of a ghost, not a new ghost.
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Stan’s explanation @2 is exactly how I understood the comic, and he explained it much more concisely than I would have.
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Yeah, ghosts can die. You usually have to eat a power pill, though.
(Those are pacman ghosts, right?)
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“The upper right panel implies ghost of a ghost, not a new ghost.”
Yea, I think that’s the ‘joke’ the two ghosts are sharing. The 3rd ghost is pretending to be the spirit of the dead ghost. That’s how I managed to square what’s going on in this comic in my mind anyway.
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I’m not with the “friend pretending to be a ghost of ghost” theory. I
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@ Brian in StL – Did you hit the ceiling fan?
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“I’m not with the “friend pretending to be a ghost of ghost” theory.”
Last comment about this from me, I promise.
First of all, Brian, I hope you’re ok.
As for this theory, my thinking is that if the ghost in the coffin at the start was just going to rise again, then why is the first ghost sad, as well as being sad at the end when there are two dead ghosts? There seems to be some sort of finality here, and if that’s the case, the ghost rising from the coffin in panel 2 must be unrelated to the ghost lying there. The only explanation I can come up with is a friend pretending to be the ghost of the ghost for a laugh to lighten the mood, but then it all goes horribly wrong.
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@ Stan (9) – Brian made a later comment in the “chess” thread, so the dangling personal pronoun here @7 was just a typo.
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Missing panel: Third ghost rising from the ashes of the first two.
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[If this looks like a reply to a comment that isn’t here, that’s exactly what it is. We decided these mild chiding remarks to the intruder were not enough, and we just deleted the obnoxious post. But I was too fond of my Hashem anecdote to see it just gone! So here is the out-of-context reply.]
Mosckerr, are you sure this is the post you actually wanted your comment to attach to? Rather than, say, “Manna, or MRE?” . Also, BTW, please be careful not to be needlessly provocative and potentially insulting — I mean in remarks like “Xtian church xxxxxxxx”. [Insult redacted]
Anyhow, your remark “Moshe, a baali t’shuva, argued with HaShem that HaShem send someone else!” reminds me of the time a school-oriented teacher tech education program I was working for had a section for teachers coming to us from a district of Jewish schools on Chicago’s North Side and some north suburbs. This was at the University of Chicago, an international and diverse place. One of the grad student assistants working for us that summer was named Hashem. The Jewish teachers were all amused or delighted (even if at first taken aback a little) to have the leaders say things like “Oh, get Hashem to help you with that” and “That’s something we’ll look to Hashem to take care of” …
[If there are readers who haven’t caught the basis for why that was amusing, know that “Hashem” is one of the words Jews can use to substitute for the Name of the deity.]
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And a related anecdote — at one time the CS Dept (rather mathematical and theoretical oriented) had just one guy as the Tech Staff, to maintain the building’s network and the machines on the office desktops of faculty and grad students, as well as the semi-public homework labs for students in intro courses.
This guy was named Bob Lord. And so questions like “Do you know when the new monitors for the Suns will be installed?” could be answered “Only Lord knows!”.
LikeLiked by 1 person