Here’s a little mini-arc where I do a little bit of backstory telling. I definitely don’t think it’s necessary — CUPS the Comic is not even really a little bit about the game of CUPS — but I do think this it’s constructive to explain some of this stuff to those of you who may be interested in finding it out. Whenever I watch a movies, I just kind of roll with whatever they tell me to roll with — ‘Oh, this guy’s a pirate and a taxidermist? Cool, I’m in’. My wife, though, usually gets frustrated by this. She wants answers; She wants to know the why and the how. So this mini-arc is for you people who are like my wife. The demanding media consumer types.
Character: Rick
CUPS 37: PCORTA
I’m going to be honest with you, if someone offered to pay me a living wage to just come up with fake advanced statistical metrics for sports that don’t exist, that would be the happiest day of my life.
CUPS 35: RIIITTTAAA
Not pictured: Whatever Rick’s been doing for the last several hours. Like, here it is, 8:15 in the morning, and it sounds like his day is up, moving, and already having unique characteristics. Did he not go to sleep? Is he one of those insufferable people who never get hungover? Did he maybe get up, boot, rally, hit up the McDonalds and is just now finishing up a small Madden session before attempting to make contact with the real world? Alas, this is something that will probably never have an answer, unfortunately, because I don’t feel like delving deeper into that portion of the storyline. Sorry, guys. Sometimes you just gotta let the background stay a little bit blurry to make the foreground stand out.
CUPS 33: The Night
Here’s the part where I deconstruct the joke and tell you why what you just read is funnier than you may have thought: The ‘punchline’ to this strip (having an internal narrative going on that implies to you your level of drunkenness) is at best the fourth funniest thing in this strip. ‘Prussian Dance Party’, ‘Peppermint Boston Terrier Shots’ and ‘The Night Descended Into Madness’ are all choice cuts of CUPS humor. Look, I get that you may find neither me nor my comic humorous, that’s fine. But whatever you may think that I’m doing with this comic in general, I’m doing that thing SUPER HARD in this strip
CUPS 32: A Toast
Thirty-two strips have come and gone in the CUPS saga. Thirty-two is not a remarkable number. It’s not a particularly huge number, nor is it a multiple of ten. IT’S NOT EVEN A MULTIPLE OF FIVE. So, by all accounts, the thirty-second strip of this comic is not something to comment on, but here goes:
Thirty strips is a bit of a ‘magic’ number, historically, for humor comic strips. Back when newspapers were where you wanted to be, you needed to have thirty strips done in order to submit to the syndicates. Nowadays, of course, with the internet, you could have a quarter of a strip done and put it online to share with the world, but that thirty number still sticks out in my mind as significant.
This strip is my favorite to date artistically, and one of my favorites in terms of storytelling as well. I think it’s a big deal, to me and the overall story going on, and so I’m making note of it. There have been some good strips in the last ten or so, and there’s some pretty fun stuff coming up, too. So, bit of a humblebrag happening here, but, you’re reading this strip and hanging out on this site, so you must be sort of interested in this stuff, too! I guess what I’m getting at with all of this is that I think CUPS is heading to bigger and better things than even I could have imagined when I started. Thanks for being here, you, you’re making the whole thing worthwhile.