TOM THE DANCING BUG: "Totally Rad, Louis," performed before an imaginary audience

• [TenInchesTaller]

  This is total brain candy. I love Tom the Dancing Bug!

• [eviladrian]

  When did TTDB get so darn political? There’s a thing called subtlety, you know?

• [Anonymous]

  Wait, are people not getting this? Really?

• [Anonymous]

  In the intersections of the space between the panels, you can see a grey dot but not in the intersection at which you are looking directly. Very subtle and intelligent.

  • [blueelm]

    Really? I’ve heard of that illusion but I don’t see it happening here.

    The strip is funny though.

• [Percival Dunwoody]

  And what is that wondrous invention Louis is using to wipe the ketchup off of his shirt? Rolled up paper? Looks like it could be very handy in other situations. -Percival Dunwoody, Idiot Time-Traveler From 1909

• [Tim]

  …

  I don’t get it.

  • [Anonymous]

    hes making fun of how kids act like they are on disney sitcoms. Tweens become over self concious

• [Jorpho]

  I can’t recall if the previous installment of “Totally Rad, Louis!” employed the Disney channel logo. Seems rather bold.

  • [Anonymous]

    It did, actually.

• [kpkpkp]

  A laugh track is your cue to keep going (when flipping through channels)

• [Anonymous]

  One of the tags to this post is “ketchup”. That’s why I love BoingBoing.

• [neddy]

  Subtle, but brilliant, as always. The key is what the (imaginary) audience does when the ketchup gets spilled. Poor Louis, not *totally* rad at all, is he?

  Pretty sure the Disney logo was there last time…

• [jimkirk]

  http://www.boingboing.net/2011/04/11/magic-goop-scoop.html#comments

  Problem solved!

• [Anonymous]

  The Disney Channel logo is the clue, folks.

  Like many characters in Tom the Dancing Bug, there are running jokes and recurring characters in the strip. Louis is a sensitive, self-conscious boy. This one explains him best:

  http://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2010/03/26/

• [Anonymous]

  I guess the point was a comment on neurosis sufferers being mocked by idiot-level television?

  • [Jason Rizos]

    Yes, and that we are a pathologically narcissistic society b/c of television.

    • [Dave]

      Thanks Jason,

      I took me a couple of minutes to get it in its entirety; yours and others’ comments helped.

• [holtt]

  I personally would have declared the ketchup as not intended to be a factual stain and called it good.

  • [Jorpho]

    Do you mean declaring the ketchup stain to be non-canon?
    http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=291

• [Jesse M.]

  I don’t think the joke has much of anything to do with TV or the Disney Channel, if you’re familiar with Louis’ continuing adventures you’ll know he’s very neurotic about what people are thinking of him and is always having these kinds of unrealistic fantasies about how much attention people pay to him. I think the joke here is basically that he first thinks he’s making these super witty comments that would make him the hero of an imaginary TV audience, but then he totally makes a huge deal out of something minor like a ketchup stain, imagining that both the real people around him and the imaginary audience in his head would think it was a huge deal even though in reality no one would really care if they saw it. If you browse the archives for other Louis comics you can see that this kind of exaggerated sense of people judging him on minor things is an ongoing theme…

  • [Jason Rizos]

    My interpretation is not without a thoroughgoing appreciation of the larger Louis Maltby milieu!

• [Anonymous]

  bolling is the best. i really liked dude ranch and dude speak
  from back around ’94 or so.