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Clevinger: My favorite kind of joke is the one played on the reader

• Every chapter of 8-Bit Theater has a good one, but every tenth or so has a 'hilarity assured' joke, e.g. Thief's answer to "Where did you get your class change from?" "I stole it. From the future." Or Fighter's sword-chuck rampage. Or when he for twenty or so chapters (and several in comic weeks) played the 'quiet game' (which were Black mage's happiest weeks though he hardly noted it). Or Red Mage winning a battle with his wit (the illustration atop Logic Bomb). And of course Black Mage's infamous... everything. (Like his 'love'-powered Hadoken, acquired by sacrificing 13 orphaned kids. No, it wasn't for fun. At least not entirely).
• "Where did you get your class change from?" "I stole it. From the future."
• Red Mage kills a dinosaur... with logic

Dinosaur: How can dinosaur hunting be your primary purpose? We're extinct. Red Mage: Then explain yourself. (The dinosaur gets an Oh Crap look on his face, then spontaneously combusts) Red Mage: Exactly.

• Red Mage and Bestiality
  • This exchange later on, when Fighter is riding the abomination Red Mage created:

Fighter: You can ride it! Black Mage: Fighter, get down from there; you know better than to ride crimes against nature. Fighter: Aw, man. I never get to ride crimes against nature or hobos or nuthin...

• Damn my wits!
• Any time any character attempts to formulate a plan, there will be one of these, guaranteed. To wit:

Thief: Hm, the cannon fodder angle. I can get behind that. Red Mage: It's certainly no good being in front of it.

• After the rest of the group leaves Black Mage behind with a monster, they discuss how he's going to follow them (Fighter thinks they're going back, the rest are trying to ditch him), when suddenly BM flies through the air and lands in front of them, and gives us this.

Black Mage: I found out what zombies are weak against. Red Mage: Oh? Black Mage: Point blank annihilation.

• The strip's most concentrated hilarity was during the arc where the team's diversion from their supposed mission was to run up an extortion racket after routing both the town guard and the mafia.

Bank Teller: This is a robbery? Thief: No, robbery is what my friends are doing. *Beat Panel* Robbery and some murder. Bank Teller: This bank is oozing with magic alarms! The city guard will be here any minute! Thief: There's something tragic and hilarious you don't know about that.

• • And later in that arc:

Thief: Our protection racket is great, but providing concrete incentives to be protected would be great. Red Mage: So...we're going to rob them now? Thief: Yes. Black Mage: How is that different from what we've been doing all along? Thief: Very slightly.

• • Until the whole thing comes to an end with:

Black Mage: Just cooperate, or we'll do this. nuclear explosion panel* Thief: There is such a thing as being too illustrative.

• This:

Red Mage: But where we start? Sarda: Temple of Fiends. Thief: But that's a temple, not a castle. Sarda: Temple's a kind of castle. Everyone in the world knows that. It's in the Sardapedia. See? Sardapedia: "castle (tem-puhl) - noun: Where the goddamn Light Warriors are going."

• • Thief then discovers that that's all the book says. Over and over, for hundreds of pages. He concedes the point.
• Fighter discerning he had defeated gravity by surviving an airship crash. And proceeding to fly. Red Mage promptly breaks. (link)

Fighter: Don't you see? With gravity slain, now we can FLY! *flies off* Thief: Huh. Red Mage: But he.... you can't...love...hate...clouds...*collapses*

• • But it just turns out to be Sarda jackassing them over to his place. Although, anyone time someone refers to Sarda's actions as jackassing is kinda funny in itself.
• Sarda and his Healing Shiv were hilarious.

Sarda: I turned the spear into a healing spear. Like this healing shiv. *stabs Thief* Or maybe that's my regular shiv.

• And in Elfland:

Fighter: So wait, let me get this straight. So Thief is the elf formerly known as Prince? Black Mage: Killing you is going to be the greatest moment of my life.

• And in the next strip, Doctor Malpractice gets stuck while trying to escape through the bathroom window as the light warriors listen from outside:

Doctor Malpractice: Darn it! I KNEW this would happen. I'm FAR too big. I need some help in here, but who would want to actually DO that?! Dammit, I thought elves were supposed to be scrawny twig boys! Argh! Now I'm all tangled up in my robes! I hope I can get un-tangled before I make a mess of things. If I wasn't so big, this wouldn't be a problem.

• From the invasion of Dwarfland arc:

Thief: Ack! Beard-shaped parasites are eating their faces! Black Mage: Kill 'em all! Let the flames sort it out!

• • Another example from that arc:

Red Mage: I'm going to be in front this time, so no more- Black Mage: *laser-eyes the village, setting it on fire* Red Mage: Come on. Now you're just doing it to annoy me. You don't even HAVE heat vision. Black Mage: (shrugs) Meh.

• • The whole arc was a Crowning Moment of Funny in Comedic Sociopathy!

Dwarf: By Moradin's beard! Why do only our homes and children burn?! BM (winking): Because it seemed excessively cruel!

Dwarf: Everything I love is combustible!

Dwarf: Why aren't I dead yet?

• Vilbert von Vampire, the LAR Per. The Light Warriors have to go along with his arbitrary set of rules to fight him. Hilarity Ensues when it dawns on Fighter that he's...well, a vampire. So he goes to get an appropriate weapon...

Fighter: (swinging a chunk of a fence with a cow on it) COWBONG! (Clobbers Gilbert) Black Mage: A WOODEN STAKE! Fighter: I know; what do you think the fence post is for? I'm not stupid. Black Mage: That's not a stake. Fighter: Well, no, not yet. (turns Black Mage around to shoot fire at the down Vilbert and Cow on a stick) Now it's Wood in Steak.

• • • Red Mage notes how Black Mage has finally lost it from constant exposure to Fighter...

Black Mage: (staring at the fire) Wooden Stake. Wood in Steak...

• • • • (and then later goes on to discuss about how cool Sword-Chucks are.)
  • Gilbert is equally baffled:

Vilbert: Fighter, first, you didn't engage in a physical challenge. (Shows a building with a sign: "Third Annual Hindu Vegetarian Club Meeting (Picnic and Fun!!)" and the Wood in Steak flying down towards it. Fighter: You try balancing a cow on the end of a fence post and swinging it like a club! That's a damn physical challenge!

• Then there was this and this. You can't solve everything with a vote.

Thief: Oh dear ever-handsome elf-gods, are we actually stupid enough to have voted on nothing at all?

• The entire Dwarfland arc, start to finish.

Red Mage: Come on. Now you're just doing it to annoy me. You don't even have heat vision. Black Mage: Meh. (link)

• I, GARLAND, WILL uh...KNOCK YOU ALL DOWN!
  • Even better when you're aware that except for the "uh...", it's a verbatim quote from the English translation of the first Final Fantasy game.
• The part where they're stuck on the island. All of Red Mage's attempts at chocobo transportation/genetic engineering/surgery.

Red Mage(after creating a horribly mutated chocobo): All it required was a cocktail of dangerous experimental surgery and a willingness to ignore the unnecessary suffering of perfectly innocent beings! Also, I shot magic into their chromosomes until they turned inside-out. Evolution is my bitch.

• • The icing on the cake was Black Mage's Eye Take and awkward glancing back and forth, just TRYING to think of what the hell to say.
• A short time before the above entry, Black Mage's repeated assaults on Fighter's cranium start having an effect:

Thief: Looks like that stab to the head wasn't so bad after all. Fighter: You get used to it after the first dozen times. Dozen times. Dozen times. Dozen times.

• Three arrows in a single bow? Nothing out of the ordinary. Two bows with three arrows each? Funny. Two bows with three arrows each, per hand? Comedy gold. the right reaction to such absurdity? Downright hilarious!

Onion Kid: What happened to that arrow guy? Sarda: Oh, him? He went home. Forever.

• "I was right. That didn't make sense."
• The whole of the Glorious Chainsaw Method ability:

Red Mage: Fighter! (holds out index card) Do as the card commands! (Beat Panel) Red Mage: ...Fighter? Fighter: It hasn't said anything yet... Black Mage: Take the card and then read the card. Fighter: (does so) 'Kay. (BZZZRR!) Red Mage: Should have probably told Black Mage to get out of the way. (Black Mage gets back to his feet) Black Mage: WHAT. DID YOU WRITE. ON THAT CARD.

• Black Mage and Thief discuss the finer details of being dead:
• "There is a map to Swordtown on the other side of this note." Yee!
• Will you stop looking into the ancient insanity box already!
• "They may be monsters, but they're sea monsters. What're they gonna do? Flop around on deck and suffocate at us threateningly?"
• Red Mage freezing the team to keep them from being killed by the Ice Dragon? Funny. Expecting Black Mage to come and thaw them out with one of his many fire spells? Funny in a very pitiable way. Black Mage dropping out of his current fiery rampage to stare at the now frozen Light Warriors for two panels before going far in the background to deliberately squander more fire spells at everything but ice block? priceless.
  • Even better is how they do finally get out of the ice.
• BEHOLD MY HUMAN LASER!
  • I HAVE NO LASERS, AND I WILL LASER TO DEATH ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE.
• Bikke's Establishing Character Moment:

Bikke: Consider the lives of me crew forfeit. Garland: I'm sure it won't come to that. Bikke: It will if I says it will.

• I knew that would happen, but I'm mad about it anyway.
• The Drizzt Syndrome character's Un Reveal:

Drizz'l: I'm going to be the bigger elf here. I'm not even upset. Drizz'l: Mostly because I have FIENDS! (cut to empty hallway) Drizz'l (downcast): Just not WITH me.

• The best by far is a sort of Meta example. Clevinger is best known as a Teasing Creator, and he created a fake, anticlimactic ending, expecting to receive tons of hate mail. Instead he was flooded with mail about how appropriate the ending was and had people thanking him.
• *KABOOM* "Yar? ...Must be Explodin' Tuesday." and "WHY WOULD IT EXPLODE?"'
• I particulary like "FIGHTERDOKEN!", "MEDOKEN!" and "HADOYOUSTOPTHIS?!"
  • BOATDOKEN!
• The Light Warriors being found in the female Elf barracks.........dressed as women.
• In one comic, Black Mage, after being threatened with certain death against some fiends, Black Mage mocking claims that he's so scared that he's about to shit Thief's pants. Sounds like just a weird insult, until the next comic. Note Thief's annoyance and BM's apology after the fiends show up. BM wasn't just kidding, apparently.

Thief: That's super. Now I have to ninja up some laundry.

• Why is everyone forgetting the epileptic llama attack?

Drizz'l: What was that?! WHAT WAS THAT?! Vilbert: I don't understand what happened! Sarda: It would be worse if you did.

• The whole Quiet Game episode, especially how it finally ended...
• This little exchange between Fighter and Black Mage.

Fighter: Hey Black Mage. Did you happen to see Dr. Swordopolis? Black Mage: Dr. Who? Fighter: No, no. Swordopolis. *A picture appears of Dr. Swordopolis wearing a scarf, and the Ninth Doctor wearing a pair of glasses, appears.* But the resemblance is uncanny.

• • Lots of fantasy settings have a North!
• Garland: Oh, we'll show YOU adorable!
  • Sarda: ... Yes, you sure did.
• Thief having his class change stolen from him From the past. several hundred strips later.
• "Glorious leader, we have found a queen for you!"

Black Mage: I have made a grave miscalculation here.

• • And then Black Mage's Beat Panel reaction, after Red Mage says he supports Black Mage's decision.
• The dragons in the Temple of Fiends.

Dragon: BLARG! I'M A DRAGON! OR TWELVE! Red Mage: Impossible! Only a maximum of nine enemies may be onscreen! Dragon: FUCK YOU. Red Mage: Run.

• • Made even better by the fact that just before that Black Mage said the worst thing they'd find was a stairway without handrails. In the last panel, they're falling down the stairs.
    • And masterfully called back to in the epilogue:

Menu: TWELVE DRAGON NACHOS: Piled so high with topping there's only room for nine on the plate!

• This.

Black Mage: Where in the hell are we? Red Mage: My A-hole. Black Mage: Goddammit, Red Mage...

• • Followed immediately by This exchange.

Red Mage: So deep are we (within my A-hole) that Sarda will never find us no matter how thoroughly or how vigorously he probes my A-hole. Black Mage: Can you say things without talking? Is that...Can we do that? Please? Red Mage: What's wrong? All I'm saying is that we're deep, deep in my A-hole. Black Mage: Stop using that word! Red Mage: O...kay. Black Mage: Thank you. Red Mage: Would you prefer to say that we are in my B-hole then? Either is accurate. Black Mage: I'm...not sure what that could refer to, and it makes me worried.

• • • That one's made funnier if you realize that it being a B-hole doesn't help matters. Bunghole.
    • Or Butthole.
• This whole conversation made me laugh nonstop for minutes.

Black Mage: They're trying to kill me! Fighter: That's a shame (turns against Red Mage and Thief) Red Mage: But we have a good reason! Fighter: (goes back to Red Mage and Thief's side) Sorry, Black Mage, but you heard the man. Black Mage: "A good reason" isn't a good reason at all! Red Mage: We need to use your heart. Black Mage: So do I! It moves my blood around! Red Mage: Not if we kill you! Black Mage: That's distressingly logical.

• "Any fate we can walk into because we're not dead is a better one than we had ten minutes ago."
• Sarda conclusively proves that he has not taken the Evil Overlord List to heart.

Sarda: This... will not be... [...] My plans will not be undone by such amateur-hour horseshit as absorbing too much power and exploding. [...] I am Sarda. My will be done. [...] *BOOM*

• • Or maybe not.
• Simply because of the buildup beforehand (and spoilered for that reason, though it is also a huge spoiler if you read the page):

Fighter: I thought Sarda had a mustache.

• Red Mage hatches a plan to defeat Chaos.

Red Mage: I can fix all of this. Black Mage: Ohhh, no you don't. If I have to listen to one more of your word salads in the guise of a plan, I will kill myself so hard it will kill you instead. Red Mage: No, no, no. This is so stupid it's completely foolproof. Black Mage: That's not how stupid works! There's a critical mass of stupidity beyond which no additional amount of stupid will improve your chances for success!

• This older one is also very funny. Demonstrating Black Mage's logical approach to things:

Red Mage: (...) You're a mass-murdering psycho! Beat Panel Black Mage: If you think about it, that's really their problem.

• This one:

Thief: White Mage, Black Mage! Something bad has happened to physics. I'll need your help re-establishing order to the universe as soon as I'm done with RM's wallet.

• "Your faerie shat itself!"
• After Black Mage gets kicked in the nuts by a decidedly non-goblin creature:

Red Mage: Oh, the dreaded goblin punch! Thief: You call it a goblin punch. Even though it was very clearly a kick. And their isn't a goblin within a thousand mile radius. Red Mage: What? That's the name of the move as chronicled by the greatest cryptozoologist in red mage history: Blindy O'Sightless. Thief: The more I learn about you, the more it makes sense. Red Mage: That's a good thing, right?

• • In the very next comic, Black Mage puts his newly learned...er, "Goblin Punch" to great effect.

Black Mage: (running as fast as he can) INNA NERTS! (Mushroom cloud explosion panel, indicating that Black Mage has kicked the target into orbit)

• "Episode 1192: Closure":

Red Mage: Maybe we're trying too hard. Thief: We've never done that and you goddamn know it.

• • "QUEST COMPLETE!", and this...

Red Mage: Well, yeah. But I mean, maybe we can't make our own quests. We have to find them out there in the world. Roaming free, pure, beautiful. Beat Panel, as Black Mage and Theif share a weird look* Black Mage: That got a little weird at the end.

• The expression on the guy's face in the third panel of this strip, combined with this gem from Black Mage:

Black Mage: "Saved your life, lady! He was a monster! I'll prove it to you -- when I carve his mask off he'll look totally gross."

• "So this is what it's like when he makes you too stupid to think."
• "Obstacle course? Mo' like KA-BOOM course!"
• And now Red Mage's latest plan to kill Chaos by stupiding him to death.
• This.

Thief: "HOW DO YOU MISS A VOLCANO?!" Narrator: "A Planet in the same orbit on the other side of the Sun..." "Where giant lizards rule...

• Orbs of Light, bottom panel.
• In yet ANOTHER excessively long setup to an eventual payoff: Four White Mages? It'll never work. ...or maybe it will.
  • Clevinger directly pointed this out and it instantly became a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
• Bikke. Two plus two.
  • Cantaloupe.
• "And thus, King Steve's Kick-Ass Bridge was built. There's already a wreck in the southbound lane."
• Possibly Fighter's greatest line.

Victor Von Vampire: "Are you ready?" Red Mage: "I was BORN ready." Fighter: "I was born naked and screaming."

• • How do you quote that without Black Mage's follow up? "If all goes according to plan, you'll die like that too."
• Episode 726: That Sinking Feeling

Red Mage: *standing in a sinking submarine* Oh, please. Death is for NPCs. I'll just pop the drain and let all the water out. Black Mage: Think about that for a minute. What is going to rush in here and drown us instantly when you do that? Red Mage: Nothing because it's the perfect plan? Black Mage: *grimaces for a panel* No, think harder.

• • Made even funnier when Fighter goes and does exactly what Red Mage proposed.
• Sword-Chucks, yo.
• FLYING THROUGH SPACE!
  • HAVING ADVENTURES!
    • ARMOIRE, ARMOIRE OF INVINCIBILITAAAY!
• Fighter managing to make several 'bear' jokes one after the other, successfully pissing off Black Mage.
• Soon after, Thief dismisses the supposed hauntedness of the woods they're in:

Thief: We're not too worried, thanks. I'd like to think I know my way around a forest. Y'know, since the essence of my being resonates with the very concept of "forest." And frankly, I've seen darker wood in elf porn. (Black Mage immediately throws up.) Ranger: Your elf eyes do see the living forest itself, that much is clear to me. But there is much more that you cannot see. Black Mage: Man, and I didn't lose it when I caught a glimpse of an elder god defecating. Fighter: (looking down) You got it on my shoes. Black Mage: It shat out advertising executives. They're the bowel obstruction that killed the old universe.

• The second nightmare Black Mage has due to the poisoned cookies Matoya gives the Light Warriors. Absolutely hilarious.
• White Mage says that she doesn't know whether the Light Warriors are alive or not. Cue this.
• Black Mage taking out the Nintendo Power issue in here which he had already taking out here. It also counts as a Crowning Moment of Awesome for being the longest set up in a webcomic, lasting 9 years and 1214 strips.
• The last window in this strip.
• Black Mage explains the widespread destruction to White Mage.
• Oh, people cough for hours after they die. (...) And stand up. And... change their clothes?
• "Montage!"
• The Light Warriors are about to face Sarda while he is "charging" the power of the Orbs into himself. Black Mage and Thief run away, taking Fighter with them, leaving Red Mage alone with Sarda. RM says that this is quite normal, and Sarda replies "Preaching to the choir." Red Mage asks if Sarda is sympathic to his plight. Cue Evil Laugh.
• Setting: a quiet village where a gang of anonymous men posing as adventurers are raping people. Cue Red Mage leaping down from above: I HAVE TO SHOW YOU WHAT'S IN MY POCKET! IT WILL MAKE EVERYTHING BETTER!
• Dag. "Well, yeah, it is an elven slang. But more specifically it's prison slang."

Fighter: Psst! What does "situational homosexuality" mean?

• After Black Mage gets back from killing the orc zombie and promptly passes out from flying into the ground at high speeds, we get this exchange:

Red Mage: "Oh, he's dead." Thief: "No, just passed out." Red Mage: [pulls out a sword] "I am never wrong."

• Matoya poisons the Light warriors...

Matoya: I hope I haven't POISONED your opinions of me. Because I'd hate to have POISONED our future dealings. Ooh! Ooh! Guess my favorite '80s band. Go on! Guess! Black Mage: Gee, I don't know, could it be... Poison? Matoya: No, it's Warrant! Gwa ha ha ha ha!

• This whole comic is funny, but all of Red Mage's lines are brilliant:

Red Mage: Use your weapons, they are designed to inflict damage! Red Mage: Our weapons are useless, reliance upon them is death! Red Mage: It has exposed its weak, fleshy underbelly to me in the form of its digestive tract!

• Thief hears about the quest given to the other Light Warriors by Bahamut:

Thief: So you morons met the god of dragons. Red Mage: He's also their king. He was very clear on that. [...] Thief: Okay, you met this god and/or king who lives in a dank hole in the ground, and he asked you to get the tail of a rat for him. Black Mage: That about sums it up. Thief: This dragon. Was he, by any chance, a hobo in a dragon suit?

• "Die, ants, die!"
• Red Mage's tale of defeating a monster through the "vigorous" use of animal husbandry.

"Each was more prehensile than the last!"

• Nobody remembered this one? in my opinion, it's one of the funniest moments in the entire comic.

Black Mage: Does that LOOK like an invisible sky castle? Fighter: Sure, maybe. I've never seen one. Black Mage: Can you imagine why? Fighter: ... Fighter: ... Fighter: Because they're quite rare? Thief: Technically he's not wrong, you know. Black Mage: But he SHOULD be.

• "Kary, why don't you show this pile of hair what you think of his little fire helm?" (beat) "That's not what I meant."
• "Chaos! You're too tall!"

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