The problem with marionettes is they can only use things that are also marionettes. You don’t want them living with you.

There can be little doubt that poets do not contribute greatly to society. Their work, produced in vast abundance, is nearly valueless to our species. Indeed, the great bulk of their efforts are simply given away; the poems cannot be sold. Yet, I believe that poets are capable of contributing meaningfully to the human endeavor and I propose the following ways in which we may put poets to use.

Halloween is almost here, and what better way to get into the appropriate mood than with a creepy marionette that has mysteriously taken Winslow’s place!

Those who have never hated anyone, for example children under ten years old or saints, often don’t know how to show hatred for deserving hateful people, or even what that feeling is like. By rights they should hate quite a few people, as we all should, and yet they are blocked. At most they feel a vague dismay and insecurity in the presence of repulsive others, or become queasy at the thought that so many folks out there are obnoxious jerks, but they can’t summon the proper attitudes of derision and disdain that all these unmitigated asses so richly deserve. Yet by following a few simple rules they can break through this barrier of reticence and let their justified hatred pour forth.

One of the benefits of publishing comics every Friday is that I always get to post something whenever a Friday the 13th rolls around. In what has become a Ben & Winslow tradition, these comics tend to be the most violent and destructive, because it just wouldn’t feel like a Friday the 13th without someone getting mutilated.