Stealth Pun/Web Comics

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Stealth Puns in Web Comics include:

Homestuck

The number of examples in Homestuck (see the work page) seems to cement that if we had individual pages for Stealth Pun, Homestuck would be one of the first.

  • Just for a taste: Dave eventually becomes a time traveler, using his power to do more stuff in a relatively small amount of time. His emblem? A broken record.
  • The SORD..... Dave alchemises is so shitty it actually costs negative grist. What do you gain on making it? Artifact grist.[1]
  • Every player in the game gets a small planet called "The Land of X and Y" where X and Y are themes like wind, rain, or silence, and the planets are often abbreviated into an acronym (ie. LOWAA, LOLAR, LOMAT, etc). Nepeta winds up with the Land of Little Cubes and Tea, otherwise known as Lolcat.
  • Speaking of Nepeta, for a long time the fanbase was unsure whether or not she survived an attack, since we never saw her. In other words, for a while, she could be alive or dead... i.e., Schrödinger's Cat.
  • Nepeta dies in what looks like a Too Dumb to Live moment, since Equius had sacrificed his life to protect her, and given her strict orders to remain in the safety of the vent she was hiding in. But she (a Catgirl) was overcome with curiosity, and it killed her.
  • A ridiculously convoluted one - Tavros is introduced trying to "get Dave's goat" by trolling him, and he performs an extremely bad rap in which he describes being stopped by a policeman who discovers him smuggling Dave's goat as well as a goose, which is apparently "honktraband". Later on the word "honktraband" is used by Gamzee, who is a clown-themed troll, and also associated with goats due to his connection with the star sign Capricorn. And it is eventually revealed that he had been in love with Tavros - in short, Tavros had "got his goat" and it was "honktraband".
  • One of the many, many huge plot developments in "[S] Cascade" was Bec-prototyped Jack Noir killing everyone in Exile Town except PM on his way through to the troll session. PM is very, very angry... and unbeknownst to Jack, WV was carrying the other prototype ring. PM puts it on, and follows Jack to get revenge. This means the epic battle between Physical Gods also comes down to an age-old conflict: dog versus mail lady.

The Order of the Stick

  • Vaarsuvius's second Evil Counterpart is named Pompey. Vaarsuvius -- sounds like Vesuvius; Pompey -- Pompeii.
  • Leeky Windstaff's hawk is named Kitty. As in kitty hawk.
  • In this strip, fleeing the burning city, Elan stops to break into a music shop and steals a lute. The setup is palpable, but the inevitable pun goes unsaid. He lutes the store.
  • Not to mention here, in which Roy must get familiar with Blackwing.
  • Malack spell-checking Durkon's scroll. Spell-checking. Got it?
  • The three empires on the Western continent are never mentioned together in the same sentence. They're the Empires of Blood, Sweat, and Tears.
  • In this strip, exactly how vicious Belkar is measured on a chart. That would make the part on the left an Axis of Evil.
  • The Empress of Blood attempts to grow more powerful by gorging herself with food. This gives a whole new meaning to hunger for power.

Other Web Comics

  • This Irregular Webcomic strip. Also, comparing "hobbit" and "habit" is so common that the author promised to only do it once every 100 strips. Mostly Averted Trope, though... The author is abnormally fond of puns. Somehow, he makes it work.
    • There's also this strip, where he mentions this very article. (What pun Morgan-Mar actually intended there, only he knows for sure.)
    • Another example: in this strip, Lambert's hobbit-pun is ruined by a (rather ominous, but that's not the point) cough.
    • The Quintessential Fifth Elementalist. Consider the literal meaning of the word "quintessential".
  • This episode of Striptease in a flashback to high school. Max and Em are squirted with red paint by another student, who is then caught by the teacher... red-handed.
  • In this episode of Adventures in ASCII (a strip where the characters are letters and other printables), Miss B reacts with a stony silence upon learning that Bold H is taking the guest Miss Delta (she's from @hens) down the river to see the estuary.

Miss B: ...
Bold H: What?
Miss B: I didn't say anything.
Bold H: It was the way you didn't say it.

"Et Tu, Brute?" -- Famous line from Julius Caesar.
The Et family really should know better than to go out in pairs.

  • This Nukees. "Duck Orations" would be "Quacks."
  • In Triangle and Robert, one of the plotlines involves Triangle fighting things to recover a series of "Dragon Circles," which are lettered A, B, C, etc. When he gets to the 25th one, Dragon Circle Y, he discovers that's the end of them, there are only 25. "Somehow, avoiding the pun makes it even worse."
  • In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob, Bob's unseen next door neighbor is named Ray, a reference to the old comedy team, Bob and Ray. Even more obscurely, another unseen neighbor is Mrs. Spitoonelli (a play on "spittoon," of course), with a husband named Harold. It is later mentioned her first name is Maude, referring to the Black Comedy movie Harold and Maude. And in Galatea's French adventure, she rides a Vespa with the name "Princess" on the side.
  • In this filler strip of Keychain of Creation, we're treated to the Orphaned Punchline of a (naughty) joke that ends with "What I really meant is that we'd need cunning translators." See, in Exalted, your translation ability is measured by your score in "Linguistics", so apparently the joke began with her telling the king that she needed... I'll leave you to figure out the rest.
  • The Adventures of Dr. McNinja provides you with this image of a train accident to use if your forum discussion gets off topic it has been derailed. Additionally, your train of thought has been broken.
    • Also, there's one bit of alt text that imagines Dr. McNinja being followed on a quest by his refrigerator. A subsequent panel gives alt text of the fridge huffing as it tries to keep up. His refrigerator is running.
    • First Gordito shoots the undead, then the uncola. The alt text informs us that next time, Gordito shoots a dusty old book. He shoots the unread.
    • The McNinja family is provided with holy weapons to defeat a ghost. Dark Smoke Puncher gets nunchucks made from the bones of Mother Theresa.
  • Shortpacked features a character named Leslie Bean, who is, as her name suggests, a lesbian... but the more subtle pun comes from the fact that she joined the main cast around the time Ethan lost his role as Only Sane Man, and now tends to be the voice of reason in Seinfeldian Conversations and hijinks, making her... the straight man.
  • This The Perry Bible Fellowship strip has one as an added bonus joke: Imagine what the hammer is saying in the last panel.
  • VG Cats in "Avoiding Penis Jokes".
  • This Arthur, King of Time and Space strip has the stated punchline "Beware of Greek bearins GIFs", but leaves out the obvious "Trojan horse" joke.
  • Sluggy Freelance shows what happens when you try to go through a dungeon designed for several players by yourself in a MMORPG like World of Warcraft. When Torg tries to do it, all the monsters get together and hand him a gift. When he opens it to see what it is, it turns out he is, in fact, getting his ass handed to him.
  • Bloody Urban features a character with blue hair named Pandora.
  • An early El Goonish Shive comic could have easily made a Hammertime joke.
  • This Everyday Heroes strip shows the characters scowling at all the taxes taken out of their paychecks. In addition to the usual federal, state, local, Medicare, and FICA, there are also deductions for "snieca", "hearta", "pollex" (Latin for "thumb") and "Persian 9' X 12'"... in other words, sneak attacks, heart attacks, thumb tacks, and carpet tacks.
    • Also, there seems to be a chain of coffee shops named "Sundo" (with the bar over the "o" indicating a long vowel). Since the Sun is a star, and do ("dough") is another name for money, or bucks ...
    • When Mr. Mighty is working the night shift, he comes home in the morning just as the kids are leaving for school. He and his wife take advantage of the empty house for some "quality time" ... and in the next strip, he shows up to work smiling and singing "A Hard Day's Night". Heheheh ... you said "hard".
    • On this page, Mr. Mighty is thwarting a hold-up at the "Red Rooster Natural Mini-Mart". While some readers might recognize "Red Rooster" as a Brand X version of White Hen Pantry, not everyone will figure out the "Natural" part of the joke. In shooting dice, a "natural" is when you win by rolling a seven or eleven.
  • This Basic Instructions has Scott suggest that his friend get a job driving a rickshaw as a getaway vehicle for criminals. The idea is already so goofy that you might miss the other joke: his friend is named Rick.
  • See if you can spot the stealth Visual Pun in this Penny Arcade when Gabe sneaks into Tycho's room.
    • Tycho has a picture of the actual Tycho Brahe on his wall.
  • This post at Webcomic.
  • Gunnerkrigg Court: In the City Face side comic, the fairy Torus convinces the pigeon City Face that he has become a human businessman. She then gives him a berry, which she says every businessman needs. "No! You weren't supposed to eat it!" It was a blackberry.
  • PvP has in one strip Brent tell Francis the following joke:

Brent: Did you hear the one about the cannibal who dumped his girlfriend?
(Beat Panel)
Francis: Ewww... gross!

    • Brent at the end even calls it a Stealth Joke.
  • Narbonic has Dave finding a girlfriend online. She's reluctant to meet him in person. He asks her, "Are you afraid I'll turn you off?" Ironic, since she's actually a computer. Later, Dave actually does turn her off when he downloads his mind into her hardware and erases her, leading to a Shout-Out to 2001: A Space Odyssey: "Dave, what are you doing? I'm afraid, Dave ..."
  • The English title of Touhou Nekokayou is "Scarlet Weather Archive in Japanese Red." This is taken from the Touhou canon Gaiden Fighting Game Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and the book Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red. Then someone noticed what the other halves of the names make.
    • Near the end of Create.swf Adventures: Shenanigans in a Magical Forest, it's revealed that all of the "player" characters have their own individual "Hax Sign" spellcard. As Yasora's spellcards begin to wind down, everyone except Marisa uses their respective Hax Sign spellcard, with a fair amount of success. Cue the final sequence, where Marisa's all ready to bust out her long-awaited Hax Sign: Sepiechritude (a shout out to Problem Sleuth's Sepulchritude, which everyone assumes to be a huge beam attack or something of the sort, as per Marisa's trademarks. Then someone noticed the "pie" in "Sepiechritude..."
  • This Tree Lobsters has a clever one. On its, the comic works as a relatively straightforward parody of infomercials. Look closely at the description on panel 3, though, then look up elements 11 and 17 on the periodic table. Sodium and Chloride, respectively. In other words, it's a grain of salt.
  • This Down the Stairs comic shows a growing lightbulb. The pun is that it is growing from a "bulb", like a plant.
  • One example in The Fuzzy Five is the abbreviation of the name of the fictional "Ominous Mountain State University" as "OMSU and U".
  • In this Megatokyo strip, Yuki's brother teases her about calling a large animal vet, and then he starts making cow noises. This doesn't make any sense unless you infer that she was yelling "mou" (used in Japanese as a frustration noise, like "Rrrgh!"), which sounds a lot like "moo."
Back to Stealth Pun
  1. ↑ Jpeg compression, a staple of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, creates jpeg artifacts.
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