Chopping Block
A darkly humorous webcomic by Lee Adam Herold documenting since 2000 the single-panel exploits of Butch R. Mann, a hockey mask-wearing serial killer who is equal parts "Jason Voorhees, Hannibal Lecter, Norman Bates, and Ziggy." Most of the humor of the strip comes from taking typical horror and slasher tropes, then bringing them to the most ludicrous possible applications. The strip is notable for both its gag skill in Crossing the Line Twice, and its unique gray-toned art style that is both inked and sponged before being scanned into the computer.
Definitely not for kids, as the subject matter swings freely from Dead Baby Comedy to Gallows Humor to Black Comedy and all steps in between. However, if you're in the mood for a little walk on the darker side of the mind, this is the panel-strip for you.
Tropes used in Chopping Block include:
- Aborted Arc: Schedule Slip has caused the author's few storylines (delving into Butch's past) to abort without mention.
- Acrofatic: Butch veers between this and just plain fat.
- Alone with the Psycho: Many strips are positioned as such.
- ...And Show It to You: Butch tries this sometimes, but the victims usually don't live long enough to see it.
- Asshole Victim: Butch likes to kill these, although he'll target anyone who draws his attention. (Among other things, he specifically targets registered sex offenders.)
- Author Avatar: Alarmingly possible.
- Autoerotic Asphyxiation: Carefully faked.
- Ax Crazy
- Bad Humor Truck: When you're killing the ice cream man, remember to turn off the music.
- Beach Bury: Butch didn't initially bury the guy, but he did finish the job.
- Bed Trick: Butch killed the guy who was supposed to be in the bed. (He really just wanted a hug.)
- Bilingual Bonus: Various strips have been written in several different languages, such as Irish, Spanish, etc.
- Bitter Almonds: Like a lot of creators, Herold screwed this one up, assuming that bitter almonds smell like regular almonds.
- Bloody Hilarious
- Borrowed Biometric Bypass: Can be problematic if you lose track of whose eyes are whose.
- British Stuffiness: Butch demonstrates how to eliminate it.
- The Butcher
- The Calls Are Coming From Inside the House: "Damn caller I.D."
- Cannibalism Superpower: Butch doesn't have one, even if he thinks he does.
- Chained to a Railway: The back-to-basics approach.
- Cheek Copy: With someone else's butt, and not much else of them.
- Companion Cube: Most of the objects in Butch's house have given him suggestions. Terrible, terrible suggestions.
- Completely Missing the Point: Butch intermittently forgets that killing people is illegal, instead panicking that a bystander saw him commit a much more minor crime (like shoplifting) in the process of killing someone.
- Crime After Crime: Butch is prone to killing one person to help another, killing that second person for panicking at his actions, and then killing whoever saw it happen.
- Crossover A few, starting with Butch making bread with Freddy Krueger, and ending with the devils from Sinfest, Living In Greytown and Hell Sweet Hell using him as a marionette.
- The union meeting of "Psychos Local 616" (March 29, 2001), with Freddy, Jason, Leatherface, Mike Myers, and Butch "talking shop".
- Dead Artists Are Better: Butch buys paintings from artists before killing them.
- Dead Baby Comedy: Butch kills men, women, children, and dogs without pause, sometimes in alarmingly graphic ways.
- Dead Guy Puppet: Giving Jim Henson the funeral he would have wanted.
- Does This Make Me Look Fat?: Butch suffers it when disguised as a woman.
- Electrified Bathtub: The text talks of the beauty of the arcing electricity. Butch just likes the smell.
- Enfant Terrible: Butch strangled his twin in the womb, and liked killing animals even as a child.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Butch is a killer, and is terribly embarrassed for something to think he's going to rape them. Notably, this isn't a moral standard, it's pure semantics on Butch's part.
- Everybody Hates Mathematics: It's been mentioned multiple times that Butch had difficulty with math in school.
- Everyone Hates Mimes: Butch kills them even after meeting his quota.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: "Something told Butch he should kill the next person to pass by."
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Weird creature sitting on the bench: Psst. Hey, buddy. You should kill the next person to pass by. |
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- Expressive Mask: The eyeholes in Butch's mask mimic actual eyes, especially when he's happy.
- Expy: Depending on the situation, Butch can take the place of any famed serial killed, real or fictional, though his general appearance is a clear riff on Jason's.
- He once performed a Mirror Routine with Jason.
- The Faceless: Butch always wears a hockey mask. In one comic, he's shown without the mask (having carved words into his forehead... except they're backwards because he did it in a mirror); his face is entirely obscured by shadow.
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: Used at least twice. The angel never survives.
- Grammar Nazi: Yes.
- Of course, the site itself is rife with intentional punny misspellings, likely to add to the spooky decorum of the site. It is rather jarring, especially when seeing that comic. You'd think Butch would have killed his own creator by now.
- Head Hat: Head nothing, Butch once made a hat out of a uterus!
- Heroic Fire Rescue: How it looked to the onlookers. They didn't see him carry the old lady out the back door . . .
- Hooks and Crooks: Unfortunately, Butch forgot his hook.
- Hyperspace Arsenal: Best demonstrated by the fate of an unfortunate mugger.
- But there are limits to what he can hide. Not what he can carry, just what he can hide.
- I Am Legion: Well, it explains why his bulk keeps increasing . . .
- I Call It Vera: Butch's knife is named Mack.
- Ignored Epiphany: The comic plays with the trope in just the second strip.
- I Love the Dead: Butch usually treats killing a woman as equivalent to deflowering her, and doesn't have sex with her body until long after she's dead. (Of course, like a lot of things in the comic, this can vanish for the sake of a joke.)
- I'm a Humanitarian: One of Butch's most frequent reasons for murder, probably coming in third behind "they were annoying" and "why not?"
- Improvised Weapon: Butch likes his "scythe", but he's also killed people with a crowbar, a screwdriver, a lawnmower, etc.
- It's a Wonderful Plot: Without Butch . . . the world would be so much better!
- Karma Houdini: At various times, Butch has been imprisoned, put on parole, sentenced to death (with the implication that he killed everyone in the courtroom), and placed at third on the FBI's most wanted list. It has never even been hinted that something other than direct authorial intervention or his own stupidity could put him down for good. (In one version of the future, it's the latter. In another, he grows old in a nursing home, no longer physically fit enough to kill anyone.)
- Knocking on Heathens' Door: Butch does Jehovah a favor, and gets rid of a witness.
- L Is for Dyslexia: One of Butch's recurring traits. (Among other things, when he tried to kill the Dixie Chicks, he accidentally killed some "Chix with Dicks.")
- Made From Real Girl Scouts: Recipes for gingerbread men always omit the most important ingredient.
- Man-Eating Plant: A failed scheme.
- Meaningful Name: Butch R. Mann
- Murder Is the Best Solution: Essentially, Butch's five word credo.
- My Beloved Smother: Butch's mother was emotionally abusive, and although she's long since dead, he dug up her corpse and still hears it speak to him. At various points, he's carried it around in a backpack, accidentally beheaded it, and tried to climb back into its uterus.
- Notably, when someone asked him to spare her life because she had a little boy, he killed her precisely because of how he might have turned out if his mother hadn't been around.
- Nail'Em: Making a name for things that go "pffft-ka-CHUNK!" in the night. (Or at least in the afternoon.)
- Napoleon Delusion: Why Butch didn't mingle with other inmates at the asylum.
- Negative Continuity: Butch wears a hockey mask and kills people. Nothing else stays constant from strip to strip, not even his personality--it all depends on the Rule of Funny.
- Nietzsche Wannabe: Butch has been both this and The Fatalist for various jokes.
- "No Animals Weren't Harmed in the Making of This Comic": One of the author's comments. (Others include "Now with More Spleens!")
- Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?: Why not both?
- Pet the Dog: Butch feels no compunctions about killing dogs, but he never harms pet fish or allows them to come to harm, and he may have a soft spot for cats as well.
- Poetic Serial Killer: Butch tries to be one, but never quite gets the hang of it.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Butch can be this, depending on the joke. In particular, his mutilation of corpses has been compared to a child playing with a box.
- Punch Clock Villain: Though for the most part he really enjoys it, Butch treats his murders like a job, often trying to make a quota or taking days off.
- Put Them All Out of My Misery: In one version of Butch's insanity, he both sees himself as The Everyman, and hates himself, so he kills one person after another in place of killing himself. He'd kill the entire world this way if he had the chance, but he'd then go even madder with no one left to kill.
- Rage Against the Author: The Halloween arc back in 2001 eventually turned into this--Herold revived the corpses of Butch's victims to punish him, and Butch in turn tried to kill Herold. Strictly speaking, Herold won.
- Rage Against the Reflection: "Goddamn thing was always staring at him."
- Schedule Slip: The strip is known to not be updated for months at a time, then a new comic every day for just as long. Its intensive art creation certainly contributes to this.
- His updating schedule fluctuates so wildly that sometimes Keenspot just keeps him in the hiatus section of the site to save time.
- The Schizophrenia Conspiracy: Butch often hears voices that give him commands. (Interestingly, he's said that he'd go even crazier if he tried to disobey the orders.)
- The Scourge of God: Butch is either this, or really, really screwed.
- Series Hiatus: 5 May 2009 -- 1 Nov 2010
- Sinister Scythe: Butch's weapon of choice is actually a sickle, but he calls it a scythe. It eventually gets lampshade-hung when a girl at a party tells him the difference; he then kills her with his "fucking doohickey".
- Strong as They Need to Be: Butch is so out-of-shape that an old woman with a walker can outrun him, and he normally relies on stealth, but he becomes absurdly fast and lethal when large groups of people try to kill him.
- Subliminal Seduction: Butch can't detect it in The Beatles, but listening to "Octopus's Garden" does make him want to kill Ringo.
- Stylistic Suck: Butch is not a good cartoonist, although he definitely puts emotion into it.
- They Killed Kenny: Either there are a lot of Hendersons, or Butch has murdered the entire family several times by now.
- Thirty Minutes or It's Free: So how many free pizzas do you get if the pizza guy's never heard from again?
- In a later strip, he makes a "Dead in thirty minutes or you go free!" guarantee.
- Too Dumb to Live: Everyone, including Butch. (Case in point: the "final episode.")
- Useless Spleen: The spleen is probably the most frequently-mentioned organ in the comic. Butch doesn't even know what it does, but he describes as having "a certain je ne sais quois."
- Villain Protagonist: Butch
- Writer on Board: Herold, as with many webcomic artists, will occasionally force his political views into the comic. (The most notable being his response to the Terri Schiavo affair.) Fortunately, this is a very rare occurrence.
- Your Head Asplode: How Jackson Pollock should have died, according to Butch.