Girl Genius/Funny

• "Oh, help. I-hav-been-ceptured-by-a-clenk. Help. Help."
• Agatha's reaction to Barry first giving her the locket just sums up the worldview these people have so well. Keep in mind Agatha was five at the time...

Barry: Now, Agatha -- this is important. You must always wear this.
Agatha: But why?
Barry: Because... because as long as you do, your parents can...protect you.
Agatha: Really?
Barry: Really.
Agatha: But how can they protect me if they're not here? That's illogical.
Barry: Um, it's...science.
Agatha: Ah, you mean you'll explain it to me once I have a sufficiently advanced background education.
Barry: Er... yes.

• • Doubles as a tear-jerker if you know what the locket does to protect her
• Othar's reaction here.

Othar: No one ever takes me to parties.

• • Don't forget the reaction!

Gorb: Hokay, ve haff our own. *cracks knuckles* Hyu ken be de pinata!

• Bang, right from the moment she "introduces" herself.

Ta-daa! I am here!

• Lucrezia's facial expression in the last panel here.
• "FOUL!"
  • "FOUL!"
• Everything about this page.
  • "Horse! Pie! Horse! Pie! Horse! Pie!"
    • The return of the calming pie: "... still calm." "Yay, me!"
• Anything with the Jagers probably qualifies as one of these for someone.

Sorry -- vos ve supposed to catch him?

• • "'I hitt Mr Larz' (syned) a Brik."
  • "'Jenka, vy for iz Füst runnink away?"
• That's a messed-up ecosystem, man.
• "[Airman Higgs] dragged your father and Dupree ashore, where he encountered a nesting goose--which broke his other arm."
• Dupree has her broken jaw wired shut.
• "Invade In Front"
• When Agatha's mini-clanks have a new spark-clank master, the other sparks nearby start worrying. "They are building! Designing! Spitting in the face of the creator! Warping science!" ...so... "They're taking our jobs!"
  • "Doomed." "DOOMED." "DOOOMED!"
• Agatha's reaction to her first cup of coffee. Spark Roast coffee sequence, complete with Von Mekkan's "PERFECT SAUCER!" and "Vid a Nize Kick!".
• Coffee shop report scene

Vole: Dere haff been three explosions so far, sir.
Gil (happily): Agatha!

• • The second coffee shop report scene.
• Agatha's "alibi" for why she was sent to Castle Heterodyne.

Wilhelm: "Really? Oh, man, we need a good cook! Guy doing it now's a mechanic - and he's a complete idiot. I'd rather eat his engines." ... "So - what did you do to wind up here, anyway?"
Agatha: "Poisoned thirty-seven people -- who complained about my cooking."

• After utterly kicking the crap out of Vole, Gilgamesh responds to Dimo's appreciation of his methodology.

Gilgamesh: My father once wrote a monograph on how to communicate in the workplace.
Dimo: ...iz dat so?
Gilgamesh: All seven Popes ordered it burned.

• Gil's Fabulous Hat:"Hey- NIZE HAT!" "That's it. Everything's going to go boom."
  • TA-DAH!
  • Not to mention the cries from the crowd filtering through the room afterward.

Gil: Don't Help Me!

• • It RETURNS!
  • Foom!
• "Here's your boot, your majesty"
• Gil and his friends from Castle Wulfenbach have just demonstrated why Sparks under the influence of their own alcoholic creations are up there among the most hilarious things ever: "We forgot the crowd!"
• Technically they're called "fun-sized mobile agony and death dispensers."
• Cinderella. Jager. Ugly. Sisters.
  • "I LUFF my outfit! Mine iz de BIGGEST HAT in de SHOW!"
• Mechanicsburg, basically. The final panel of this strip, in particular.
• Next strip: it looks like Mechanicsburg wholeheartedly ships Agatha/Gil. Complete with Stop Helping Me! from Gil, though naturally Zeetha is having way too much fun to stop.
• This troper, who is quite familiar with Baba Yaga from Russian Fairytales. just about fell over from laughter at this strip.

Agatha: Why do you even bother keeping this running?
Circus Member: We need the eggs.

• The doctor taking care of Klaus, right here.
• Agatha sits down to dinner with the local royalty and inexplicably begins telling them everything about herself (including things she didn't even tell the carnival-folk she's been traveling with), then falls face-down into her tort. Turns out she's been slipped truth-serum in her wine. As she's being dragged off, she tells the prince she thinks he's cute.
• A special mention for the men carrying Anevka's squishy bits.

Oggie: "Who vants to be my friend?!"
Geisterdamen: draws swords, hissing.
Henchmen: (immediately raise their hands)

• "I love Christmas!"

Oh, please! What do you all take me for? I'm obviously not talking about the control group!

• The last three panels of this strip pretty much sum up the entire mentality behind the comic.
• That smug condescending snake Tarvek. "You know him?"
  • Later repeated with Tweedle.

Wooster: "Who is that person master Gil just kicked?"
Agatha: Oh. That's Martellus von Blitzengaard.
Dimo: Ho! Dot guy? Smek heem sum more!
Agatha: You know him.

• Tarvek turning green with a delirious, but appropriate comment.

Gil: And of course, I'd hate for it to be boring...

• ...most likely.
• The bucket.
• "...Then one day, while sacking a castle, I was ravished by a wild princess..."
  • That whole arc is arguably a crowning moment of funny for the entire series.
• "She is categorized as course hazard! Like in dot krezy game vere dey hit stuff mit sticks!" "...Piñata Jousting Polo?" "Dot's de vun!"
• Zeuxippe. Not only is she a hazard, but...

On my horze! Iz a nize horze!

• Really, just everything about the Maxim Buys A Hat sidestory. The punchline is so hilarious I dare not spoil it.
  • The wrap-up is also hilarious:

Maxim: (striding triumphantly out with his new hat) Vell? Is hyu ready to go, or vot?
Oggie: (jawdrop) Iz dot-
Maxim: It iz.
Oggie: (shocked) Hyu mean hyu-
Maxim: Hy deed!
Oggie: (panicked) Deed hyu-
Maxim: De ol' man is fine.
Oggie: (astonished) But how?
Maxim: Hyu uzed my brainz!
Oggie: (suspiciously) ... who iz hyu, really?
Maxim: SHADDAP AND LETZ GO!

• Violetta playing a chaperone:

Whose adolescent slave-girl fantasies are we indulging here, anyway?

• • Made even funnier if you recall the title of one of Gil's favorite books.
• Krosp has fallen into a sewer. He's gone rigid with horror; even his tail is so stiff it can be used as a handle. This isn't just because he's drenched in stinking and no-doubt slimy filth. It's because one of the Jaegers suggested he could clean himself the way cats do.

Krosp: (after a long, horrified pause) KILL ME!
Lars: Can't blame him, really.

• CHOPHEAD TINYBITS! *spak!*
  • ...nom?
  • If this is not a meme yet, it needs to be.
• How is Zola still moving? This is how.

Zola: HATE! Hate and drugs! Lovely, lovely drugs!

• • Paging Warren Ellis, Mr. Ellis to the red courtesy phone.
• Castle Heterodyne "interpreting" an argument between Gil and Zola for Agatha.
• You know that trick with laser pointers and cats? So does Agatha.
• This one.

Moloch: He'll learn. 'specially since, when she punches, she puts her hips into it.

• • Agatha responding to speculation: "WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU TWO?! ARE YOU TWELVE?!"
  • *raises hand* Can I have a pretty dress too?
• Hole in the wall? Been done. Hole in the wall and the turret behind it? Much better. Hole in the wall, the turret, and a faraway mountain? Inspired.
• Ferretina and the Fashion Clank skipping off into the sunset - (or wheeling, rather, in the Clank's case) - amidst a pink background of flowers and butterflies at the end of Revenge of the Weasel Queen. Everyone else staring in shock just adds to the hilarity.
• Regarding who has been playing the fool around whom, and who wasn't playing the fool.
• Agatha needs to get a semi-delirious Gil up and moving, so...

Agatha: Hey Gil! All of Paris is about to go up in flames, and Zola has her head caught in a bucket! Up and at 'em, hero boy!
Gil: (blearily staggering to his feet) A bucket? Again? Okay, I'm comin'.
Zola: (glares pure hatred at Agatha)

• The one thing that can make even supergenius adventure heroes back off? A really ugly spider the size of a human head.

Agatha: Well, we've got to do something.
Gil: Yeah, this is just embarrassing everybody.

• This strip.

Agatha: And then the cascade effect that usually kills everyone and sets the lab on fire probably won't even have a chance to begin! This has a small, but fascinating chance of actually working! Let's do it!
Gil: This'll be great! I can get killing him out of my system and give him a hard time about it later!

• • Especially the end line: "No, No! It's going to be all right! We're just going to kill you, and then you'll be fine!!"
• http://twitter.com/othar Othar's twitter. Full stop.
• "Now I vill not just keel HYU - Now I keel EFFERYVUN! ....Hey....Dot is verra gud coffee."
• This page.

Castle A.I.: "You are now nearing what I believe to be a major problem area."
Travek: "Um- You think?"
Gil: "Wait. This is Castle Heterodyne. Maybe it's supposed to be on fire."
Castle A.I.: "FIRE?! AAHHH!! PUT IT OUT! SAVE MEEEE!"
Travek: "...apparently not."

• • And it was on purpose. Castle A.I. just forgot.
• Lucrezia is very Genre Savvy.

Zola!Lucrezia: "But he's [Barry Heterodyne] been missing for years. He's no threat-"
(both Lucrezias freeze and look around in terror)
Anveka!Lucrezia: "Do you want him to show up?!"
Zola!Lucrezia: "Ooh. So sorry, dear. I can't think of what came over me!"

• How they find the nervous system connections in the library.

Tarvek: Oh, great. So all we have to do is figure out where an evil insane genius would put a secret room.
Agatha: True. Well, let's try to think like a diabolical, paranoid, amoral megalomaniac. ...where would you put it?
Tarvek: Oh. Well, here. But--
[SHOONK]
Agatha: Ha! Perfect! Thanks, Tarvek!
Tarvek: Now just a minute!

• This.

Gil: You're up to something.
Tarvek: What makes you think I'm--
Gil: You're breathing.

• "Well, there's always the torture room."
  • The man who, on the whole, is absolutely unfazed at the prospect of being beaten and tortured copiously has one thing he cannot stand: being forced to stand around in a waiting room that is out of waiting numbers and has inappropriate music.
• Dimo admits he was listening at the door "like a grett beeg sneeky pents". And the reaction?

General Zog: Dimo! Hy am shocked at dis behavior!
Boris Dolokhov: Still, it was rather clever of him...
Zog: Hy said hy vos shocked!

• General Khrizhan's idea for getting the Other out of Agatha's head. He knows how pipple vork!
• Vanamonde being led home by his new assistant.
  • The amusing part is that this was her first day on the job. The novelisation implies that they ended up married.
• Tarvek is constantly having to put up with Violetta's painful remonstrations whenever she's angry with him, and because she's so much more physically powerful, he has to put up with it. Until he changes the rules.
• "Hmf. Well, if we threw in every minion we have, we might take out one of them." "That's a terrible plan!" "Thank you, sir!" "There's another twenty of them! We don't have enough minions!" "Er...."
• "Excuse me? Those are my Fun-Sized Mobile Agony And Death Dispensers. They're works of art!"
• "...yes?"
  • "Yes, please." "Shot op, hyu."
• "Vot der dumboozle?"
• "We're....going to have to break out those little iron cages for their children, aren't we?" "Uh-huh."
• Baron Oublenmach is utterly convinced that the act of ringing the Doom Bell will open the Heterodyne treasure vault, so that he can loot it. Unfortunately, as he actually gets to the top of the bell tower, he begins to realize that he may have not thought this through. The Castle Heterodyne's reaction is the best part, though von Mekkan's utter Genre Blindness compares.

Vanamonde von Mekkan:"...I mean, when all's said and done, it's just a bell, right?"
Castle Heterodyne: "I love this part."

• • A bit of Fridge Brilliance on the subsequent elegant and finely crafted two-page spread: Everyone is vibrating in their boots from the bell's chime, except Agatha.
    • Jagers seem to enjoy this.
    • As does Gil. Hmmmm...
• All misunderstandings over Mamma Gkika's, even when standing right before it.

Sleipnir: ...in a beer hall.
Gil: It's not just a beer hall!
Sleipnir: (seeing a barmaid) It'd better be just a beer hall!

• Agatha is worried she won't be a good ruler. Her seneschal assures her that she's got fifty generations of lowered expectations working for her.

Councillor 1: Two minutes, and she hasn't killed anyone!
Councillor 2: A new record!

• Othar is a fountain of these.

Boris: You found him?
Other Tryggvasen: But of course! Allow me to present Gilgamesh Wulfenbach--

beat

—master of disguise!

• • Tarvek's expression just puts icing on the cake.
• Franz, the dragon guardian of the Heterodynes' vault. His grumpy attitude makes him a walking laugh dispenser. First in his initial appearance in the cellars, then when he rewards Baron Oublenmach (Oublenmach is priceless here too), and then when he smashes a huge war-clank with the treasure bag. "Hey! I said rejoice!"
• Vole's expression when he finds out Gil's plans for him. Plus the pure audacity of Gil's plans.
• Check out the third panel. Agatha now has a new sonic pitchfork thing...the shape of which does not exist!
• FOOM! The return of The Hat.
  • (punch!) "When all this is settled, you get a promotion."
  • "I heard there was a HAT!"
• A small one, but when the 2/20 comic was first put up, it used "Hanger" instead of "Hangar". Whoops. The goof has since been corrected.
• The background event to hearing Klaus' story repeated. Apparently Tarvek is the only one who can actually like Foglio's storytelling.
• DuPree finds out what Vole likes best.
• Gil's new and improved (and untested) falling machine.

Gil: I assure you, even if it doesn't "fly" exactly, it should reach the ground in one piece long before it explodes.

• Gil's theatrics when dealing with Othar, and Tarvek and Othar's reactions to it.

Gil: We must flee- for it is none other than Othar Tryggvassen, GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER! Vanquisher of eeeevil!
Othar: Hey now! You make it sound absurd!
Gil: We will make a daring escape in my amazing flying machine!
Tarvek: Not the flying machine! Not the flying machine!

• "Special trousers. Very heroic."
• "A charming pair of INNOCENT HOSTAGES!"
• Agatha properly introduces Franz and Gil to each other.
• Agatha cuts Tweedle down to size the first time.
• The decoy Jager incident.

Now dis iz de part vere hyu tells me dot hyu luffs me for my brains!

• Assassin disposal. All part of the service!
• Drusus tries to stiff the incumbent Heterodyne and very quickly finds out why he should not. What a - Quack!
• Dimo understands the local problems.
• Agatha is learning from Spark of the Realm.
• Bang got fangirls!
• Queen Albia's way to... gently suggest that perhaps Agatha should do her own homework.
• The incident with two sandwiches. They don't call it "Spark-induced fugue state" for nothing.
• Tarvek risks a heart attack, thanks to Higgs' sense of humour.
• It's always shocking when children have to confront their parents' sex lives.

Lady Astarte: I remember when your father come to England... oh, it must have been forty years ago. Such a flirt, that man.
Gil: (puzzled) Wait... my father? Klaus Wulfenbach? (pulls the corners of his lips down into a frown) His mouth does this all the time?
Lady Astarte: And his beautiful, doomed affair with Albia...
Gil: (jawdrop) His what with who now?
Lady Astarte: Oh, she was furious when he left...
Gil: (visibly falling apart) The man who thinks "romance" is a type of lettuce?
Lady Astarte: Furious and heartbroken... truly a tragedy for the poets...
Gil: (wandering dazedly through the background) He taught me not to shake hands with a girl until I'd met her parents!
Lady Astarte: But enough about old court scandals. Why are you here?
Trelawney Thorpe: We hope to consult the Queen's memory.
Lady Astarte: Well, of course. What about?
Gil: (shrieking) THIS IMPOSTER CLAIMING TO BE MY FATHER!

• Dimo attends an object lesson on politics.
• Seffie learns a lesson in why one does not attempt to bluff the immortal god-queen. After an accident during which a plate of desserts got stuck to her hair...

Albia: Princess Xersephnia, we presume. *blinks* Ah, is that-?
Seffie: (with impeccable savoir-faire) Couture de sucreries, your majesty. I have only just come from Paris.
Albia: (gleefully) Well, you look absolutely charming! You simply must wear it at tonight's celebratory revels! [...] Our court is simply insatiable for the new fashions from Paris! They will adore you! For now, Lord Womble will show you to private quarters where you may refresh yourselves and prepare.
Seffie and Martellus: Thank you, your majesty.
(immediately after Albia departs)
Seffie: (shrieking) Am I going to have to wear food in my hair ALL DAY?!?

• At Albia's royal ball, Martellus has an attack of foot-in-mouth disease at the exact wrong moment and inadvertently insults the ladies' appearances after they spent all day getting ready. And the Polar Lords didn't have enough ice for the burn his sister and Agatha laid on him in reply.

Seffie: ... just so you know, I'm okay with you killing him now.
Agatha: Oh, I couldn't! When he dies, I want him to understand why!
Seffie: Well then, I do believe he will live forever.