Right off the bat I’d like to invite the purists to bugger off.  Panel 2 had to flow the way it did or risk a third word-bubble layer with more confusing indicators. Frell that.

Ah, Rusty.

You’ve had a rough year, haven’t you? Don’t worry, my little metallic friend. We’ll find fun things for you to do… and, of course, fun new ways to spring puns upon you.

I mean, c’mon. It’s what we do here.

Just be glad that I didn’t make this a joke about stopping for gasoline. (Or petrol, if that’s your term for it.)

Happy Thanksgiving, fellow citizens of the USA. Don’t stuff yourself too much, okay?

What can I say, Iron Chef America is a fun show! And if you really want the cracktacular entertainment, try out the original old Japanese rendition.

There is a problem with this particular kind of wordplay, the homophone, in a comic: The joke relies on the reader seeing the “wrong” word, and you have to assume that the “listener” (poor Rusty in this case) “gets” that the person using the “wrong” word is doing so deliberately. It might be a bit of a reach.

Then again, maybe I’m overthinking this stuff. We’re talking about rubber ducks, after all.

At any rate: Since our webcomic pals the Tree Lobsters made a “making of” reel, I decided to give it a whirl as well. So if you’re interested, check out how today’s comic was made (minus the photography), condensed down to just over three minutes of video.

This is another of those occasions in which I have more fun with the windup to the punchline than I do with the punchline itself. I love this stuff…

I apologize for going so long between Rusty appearances. I’ll try not to let it happen again.

Also: Yes, I’m well past the tail end of the trend for mocking Twilight. This is the guy who made an “ayePhone” joke three years after the iPhone was introduced, remember?

…

One of the things Webcomic tends to do to me is to pick a random misplaced thumbnail when I upload a new comic. I always have to check the thumbnail settings before I post; it generates all of them correctly, so I just have to copy/paste the relevant part of the filename and all is well. Since nobody else can reproduce the bug, I’m sort of stuck with it. Such is life, I suppose.

I mention this mainly because today’s random selection was… the thumbnail from an earlier comic during which Rusty was eating something.

Huh. I think he’s the only duck I’ve shown eating in a comic. How odd.

If you’d like to understand Roger and Neil a bit better than Rusty’s willing to, perhaps you should see about taking in one of the classics.

(In other words: No, I can’t take credit for those jokes.)

Not much of a punchline, but this is where my mind went when I tried to think of a way to use that particular pair o’ ducks. They can’t all be bad puns and pop-culture references, kids.

…

Those two “shoulder” ducks actually came in a package marked as a pair of “love ducks.” Which is silly, because I’ve never really believed in that whole “opposites attract” nonsense.

What’s sad about posting today’s comic is that I attempted to give this one a title I’d already used.

Hey, was that a shark I just jumped over…?

You know, if you think you’re surrounded by perverts who talk about suggestive things all the time… maybe they’re not the ones with the dirty mind. Food for thought!

…

And yes, I now own two sonic screwdrivers. They’re both cheap surprisingly-costly plastic doodads that light up and make noise. I know. I couldn’t help myself.

Just don’t ask me to participate in any Eleven Versus Ten debates, okay?

(Because, seriously? Nine. C’mon.)