Lampshade Hanging/Web Comics

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


The Order of the Stick meta lampshades Lampshade Hanging. Hey, it's Better Than a Bare Bulb.

Lampshades hung in Web Comics.

Torg: Nothing Can Save Us Now!
Zoe: What was that about?
Torg: It's a classic cliché! In this type of situation, when someone says "Nothing can save us now," it's followed by someone showing up to save us.
Zoe: You mean like "It can't get any worse"?
K'z'k the Soul Collector: (suddenly appears) Hi kids!

Riff: A dynamic character with an ability to survive certain death, and a questionable death scene leaving no corpse? Face it, we'll never see her again!

Pee-Jee: How'd he get into your ice cream? That makes no sense.
Davan: He's a 30+ year old pudding cat who can travel through drains but this is where your ability to believe is gonna be taxed?

    • And continued on:

Pee-Jee: Even so, there's a point where reality dictates--
Davan: How'd that woman at your job die again?
(fact: she was eaten by a ceiling alligator)
Pee-Jee: ... this ice cream could use sprinkles.

    • And again:

Pee-Jee: Goddamnit! Why does everything revolve around sex around here?
Davan: ...bad writing...
Pee-Jee: Huh?
Davan: I'm sorry, I'm just reading John Grisham for the first time. This writing is awful.

Abe: Are you people in a club or something?

Black Mage: That's it, I've had enough. This whole goddamn adventure has been nothing but pointless build ups toward pay offs that never happen.

Aerith: I feel like I'm in a bad TV show, which is ironic since I am in a bad TV show.

Antimony: You - you're trying to summon it? But it's very dangerous!
Student 1: Ah, don't worry!
Student 2: It prob'ly looks mean but turns out ta be a nice guy!
Student 3: Yeah, dat always hap-
[CRASH]

  • Spacetrawler: The narrative regularly juggles three or four subplots, often timing the transitions between subplots just in time for gratuitous cliffhangers. There's also a Framing Device that Nogg is telling the entire story to Mr. Zorilla--and Mr. Zorilla eventually gets just as ticked about these shifts as the readers do. On this page, just as a major mystery about spacetrawler construction is about to be cleared up...

Mr. Zorilla: You're going to change to another storyline aren't you.
Nogg: Meanwhile, back in Kppfing.
Mr. Zorilla: I hate you.
[On the next page, Mr. Zorilla has forced Nogg out of the car.]
Nogg: Okay okay! I'll continue telling you about how spacetrawlers are made.
Mr. Zorilla: Alright. You can get back in.

  • Homestuck is utterly rife with visual and verbal callbacks. Late in Act 5, Doc Scratch calls attention to the fact that these keep happening, and names the phenomenon "circumstantial simultaneity" (as opposed to mere temporal simultaneity). Then, in Act 6, Dirk Strider lampshades it again:

TT: I feel like you've said something like that before.
TT: Different statements, but in that exact syntax.
[...]
TT: That actually sounds familiar too.
TT: Are you sure you haven't said something like that before?


I just thought I'd point out that this link takes you back to Lampshade Hanging.