August 8th, 2014
8 Aug 2014 · page 400 of 1306
The purple hippo of happiness is jumping on your head!
Hey look, I was interviewed over at at ComicSpire!
The Kickstarter for printed copies of volume four is now up! We hit the second stretch goal, now every book order comes with TWO free recipe cards! Let's try for the third!
Cast: Benjamin Thackerey, Jack O'Malley, Purple Hippo of Happiness
Comments (36)
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Happiness is the best half-formed spirit!
Purple hippo best pet !
Yeeeeeees this is AWESOME XDXDXD MAL YOU ARE AN UNRECOGNIZED GENIUS! I hope the sweet little pink hippo of happiness gets home later for all its trouble.
Huh.... The only part of the "evil trio" that glows is the backpack with the scrolls in it..... well that settles that they arent human or spirit.
Not sure. One of the goons is yawning in the first panel, so perhaps he is alive and that glow is his wizardry aura. He's the only one we see in 'Mal Vision'. If he is a wizard, wonder if the fact that his aura is red/purple as opposed to Mr Thackeray's green / blue and Mr Malik's bright yellow is significant.
Yes, it's not settled yet. Granted, they are quite suspicious. Why wear these costumes? It could be just be to look impressive, but the idea there is something weird behind the mask is not easy to dismiss.
We also have to remember that, at the rate we are paying [zero], errors [& "errors"] have to be accepted. One possibility was that there just wasn't room for more glows.
A different speculation would be that this may be the first time we have seen Thackery's aura, and it seems rather small, which may mean that he is not much of a mage. or that there was not much room on the page.
Paying zero? Time to visit the Kickstarter! And then Patreon!
We did see Mr Thackeray's aura a few times in 'No Rest for the Wicked'. It does seem to change colour depending on how he is feeling.
Wizard's spirits change a lot and have no real shape, which is why they give Mal a headache, like looking at something out of focus.
The best part is that Mal apparently kept this one around. He had a soft spot on the spotted hippo of happiness.
Or just was looking forward to this plan.
Probably both, but I'm guessing he wouldn't admit to the soft spot.
It's a Young Giant Pink-and-Purple Spotted Snorklewacker!
Did it bounce off Ben's head between Panels Three and Four?
So... am I the only one hoping for some Pink Hippo of Happiness merch? :D
Not at all!! I am too!!
I keep thinking of doing a sticker sheet or set or magnets or something with a bunch of spirits on.
Magnets sound fantastic!
Oh my goodness that thing is soooo adorable!
Also, I hadn't noticed this but Mal himself is in color when we're in Mal-o-vision. Is that because he doesn't see himself (so we see him in normal colors) or can he see himself in normal colors? (Sorry if this has already been asked, I must have missed it).
i thought that's how Mal sees the world around himself ^^'
Oh no! Poor little hippo! I've been worried for a while that they aren't actually desummoning the spirits, but are tapping them or otherwise doing something bad. Who knows what Envy plans?
*trapping. Darn autocorrect.
And if so, are the smaller spirits going to be angry with O'Malley once they get free again?
As we understand it [which leaves lots of room for error], the spirits are only temporarily individuals. There is a "pool" or the sin in question, and the wizard or other force dips into it and the part grabbed out becomes an individual until it is returned to the pool, rather like some water becoming ice, and then melting back into water. There is pretty much no way for the same ice cube to form again, which appears to be of no concern to the sins.
We might visualize it as each individual we see is actually a collective of a thousand souls. The total sin is a million souls, and so getting the same thousand the next time is about impossible. But whatever thousand you get spreads the word when they get back and the next thousand knows about what happened to the last thousand.
The "souls" seem to regard their time in the real world as time spent as slave labor, and being freed to go home as desirable. However, it is likely there are a substantial number of exceptions who enjoy harassing us either as a brief vacation, or as long as they can. That would explain the difficulty O'Malley & Co have had with some of them. If they all wanted to return, O'Malley could just announce the intent to send them back and the malforms would just enter the magic circle on their own. So it is likely a substantial minority need "convincing".
Ye-es, but the ones who wanted to go back, and who are captured and used for whatever the current villains are planning, might still be angry with O'Malley for, from their point of view, lying to them.
The ones who want to hang around and hassle people probably wouldn't be asking for help from O'Malley, so they wouldn't have the chance to blame him if they get caught.
Surely that would only be Happiness though, they didn't send Panic to the bad guys. They just took it.
Aren't they emotions in general, not just sins?
If they are might this be the key? Happiness sounds a lot like a cure to Envy.
Hippopotas, I choose you!
Ok, it's not an exact match, but it's the closest I could find.
Hippopuppy is cute, but I still prefer the Panic Warning Critter from their first meeting with Voss.
What about trumpet duck from their first story.
TRUMPET DUCK 4EVA
I want a Trumpet Duck plushy.
Mal has a very nice smile. That open expression in panel three makes him look quite a bit younger, and probably closer to his actual age.
he is a wreck normally, permanent those "ghosts" around is bringing his toll in terms of beauty.
But who can't be cheered up by pink Hippo of happiness ? ^^
and Mal has his Fun too, for this time. sofar without being shot in his knee... uhm neck :D
or with the words of that said Hippo "Yaaaay~~~~!"
I keep thinking: What happened with the anti-magic protesters? Yes, the buggerup crisis was caused by one of its leaders in order to gain power, sure, but it was ALSO caused through magical means. And even if she hadn't caused it through magic, I doubt all protesters would have stopped being contemptous.
Have to say, this instance of "look at 'im go!" is on par with another instance of the same, which goes in my little memory book of Epic. [http://oglaf.com/blanket/](http://oglaf.com/blanket/ "http://oglaf.com/blanket/")
I adore when the pages switch to Mal Vision, it looks so cool!
Cutest malform yet!