Stolen Pixels #240: After After Curfew, Pt. 4

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Nov 2, 2010

Filed under: Column 98 comments

And the After After Curfew series comes to an end.

This is a double-sized comic, and I had more material still that I cut. Could’ve run this for a couple more strips at least. But I didn’t want to run this Halloween story halfway to Thanksgiving.

Good Halloween. My oldest daughter went as a princess. The second daughter went as a kitty. My son went as Batman. Again. This wa either the second or third year in a row he’s gone as Batman. He’s never even seen the movies. He just really likes Batman. I went as a guy who sat at home and played Starcraft II.

What was your costume?

 


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98 thoughts on “Stolen Pixels #240: After After Curfew, Pt. 4

  1. Irridium says:

    I went as Secret Agent Squirrel and I got a friend to go as Morocco Mole.
    It was fun.

  2. gebiv says:

    I went as a guy in a bathrobe staying home playing minecraft.

    Thanks for introducing me to that addiction. :P

    (But I managed to pass the addiction on to my brother as well :D)

    1. Miral says:

      This is exactly what I did too.

  3. Tzeneth says:

    I was a secret agent dressed as a completely normal person who played some tabletop roleplaying with friends (standard gaming, not anything spooky or creepy, too hard to do that with this group of people).

  4. Felblood says:

    I went as a smelly hobo for exactly the same reason!

  5. Internet Kraken says:

    I didn’t do anything on Halloween. Mainly because I feel asleep at 7:00 PM, for some reason. I wasn’t exactly happy with that. But I still got to carve pumpkins with my family earlier in the day, and that is honestly what I like most about Halloween. The candy is just a bonus.

    On the subject of costumes, my little brother went as a dancing banana. I wish I was joking. It was a long dead internet meme coming back from the grave to haunt me in real life.

    Why does your son like Batman so much if he has never seen the movies? Does he read the comics?

    1. Shamus says:

      We saw a few of the cartoons. I guess they just really resonated with him.

      1. SolkaTruesilver says:

        Be careful about how much your son wants to become Batman.

        He’d better not have any Rayn-esque ideas.

        1. Neil Polenske says:

          This remind anyone else of Hank Venture? :P

          1. Vekni says:

            Oh, dammit! Beaten to the reference.

      2. Lalaland says:

        There’s a really striking aesthetic to those Batman cartoons and Kevin Conroy is an excellent Batman (to say nothing of Mark Hamill’s Joker). They seemed to maintain a slightly darker tone than most other cartoons at the time. I think I saw them when I was 12 or 13 and I trace my own Batman mania from then.

  6. Zukhramm says:

    I went as Fallout: New Vegas.

    1. Dev Null says:

      Were you full of bugs?

      1. Newbie says:

        Creepiest image ever

        1. Zukhramm says:

          I had to restart the evening once as my save was ereased.

  7. GTRichey says:

    I went as a guy that stayed home and ragequit fallout new vegas after a crash only to go back to it 30 minutes later… next year will have to be as the guy that convinces obsidian to sack all their programmers and hire some decent ones.

  8. eri says:

    I dressed up as a headache. It hurt a little and I kind of felt sleepy. I think I took too much ibuprofen, because my body temperature started to go crazy and my hands felt numb.

    It’s been probably close to 10 years since I did anything for Halloween. Being a recent university graduate, it would seem right of me to go to at least one or two costume parties, but I’m not really that sort of person; I fall more into the “mirthless, snarky amateur world-critic” category.

  9. RejjeN says:

    Should get him the Batman TAS episodes, they kicked so much ass when I was a kid and I still like them now xD (Well, depends on his age, for an animated series with no real blood or killing it’s pretty mature in certain regards.)

  10. ReluctantDM says:

    I dressed as our newly elected mayor. My daughter dressed as our family doctor (specifically!) and my son was a spider (hand-me-down costume). I carved a minecraft pumpkin though!

  11. Meredith says:

    I went as someone with a terrible cold, it was a good time.

    This was a good end to your little story arc, but I wouldn’t have minded a few more. :)

  12. Manny says:

    I went as a person playing TF2 in a badly lit room, hunting the horseless headless horseman.

  13. Hal says:

    I dressed up as a supportive boyfriend, while my girlfriend was a distraught Rangers’ fan.

    Yeah, she’s gonna be fun for a while.

  14. Deoxy says:

    I didn’t shave for a week before hand (unintentionally), then I didn’t get a shower that day (LONG day…), so I put on a baseball cap to hide my messy hair.

    So I went as some guy with a cap and a beard. Of course, nobody cared about me, anyway (I have 4 small children for them to look at instead).

  15. toasty says:

    I went as the birthday boy. I had my party last weekend, then I watched the Steelers lose before going back to my room to finish homework.

  16. Rosseloh says:

    Nothing special, and I didn’t actually go out on the evening in question. However, I did have to work, and the most amazing thing is that they actually permitted costumes for employees…Of course, they had to be business appropriate, and I didn’t have anything….So I put on a coworker’s nametag.
    It was considerably more clever-sounding when I actually did it.

  17. Abnaxis says:

    The weekend before Halloween, I turned my girlfriend into a fiancee, does that count? It involved jewelry….

    1. Mari says:

      ‘Grats!

    2. Robyrt says:

      As long as she doesn’t turn back at the stroke of midnight!

  18. Sphore says:

    I went as a Soviet Nuclear Researcher, then later as a guy who had neglected to do his Mathematics assignment until the wee hours of the night.

  19. Mari says:

    I went as an annoyed housewife who didn’t want to pause “Rocky Horror” to feed the darned trick-or-treaters. The hubs dressed up as a hermit, which is pretty much his perpetual state. The kiddos dressed up the night before for the school fair as an anime cat girl (just a general one, not cosplay) and Artemis. Yeah, my kids are weird. But I love ’em for being weird.

    Also, your son is awesome because Batman is the most awesome comic character evar. OK, to avoid starting any pointless flamewars, I’ll qualify that with an IMHO and a YMMV. But yeah, I’m a big fan of Bats. Not new “emo” Batman but old “intense and rugged” Batman.

    1. Syal says:

      Intense and rugged… that’s the Adam West Batman, right?

      1. Abnaxis says:

        For some reason, this comment literally made me LOL.

        1. Mari says:

          Me too. Actually, it was more of a LOLSnort.

    2. krellen says:

      The goddess Artemis, or the cat-boy from Sailor Moon?

      1. Viktor says:

        Or Master Fowl, who is considerably more awesome than either of those?

      2. Mari says:

        The goddess variety. Complete with bow and quiver (but I only let her take fake arrows) and real stag horn (ok, he was only a little buck, not so much a stag). She informed me that she wished she really could turn any boy who ever saw her naked into a deer to be rent apart by his own hounds.

        I hope she keeps that attitude well into her 40s :-P But a “bag o’ [crush]” (ok, this is seriously weird and yet inventive because the crush in question held her hand while they were dancing at cotillion and she didn’t want to ever wash her hand again, which I summarily vetoed, so she wiped the essence of that hand in a zipper bag before bathing) stashed in her keepsake drawer tells me not to hold my breath.

  20. I went as Abe Lincoln, although I’ve got to admit that your costume sounds a lot cooler, Shamus. I’ve been playing Starcraft 2 for awhile now and I’ve got to say that the single player blows me away.

    Although the DRM is pretty lame. When I couldn’t connect to Battle.net I could only play single player, which wouldn’t be so bad except I had to start over. Apparently, because I was playing on my Battle.net account, I couldn’t continue my saved game. Fortunately I haven’t lost internet yet.

    1. pkt-zer0 says:

      That should only happen if you switch to a guest account, which shouldn’t be needed. I’m not actually sure what would make you unable to log in to your normal account in offline mode, though. Temporary internet outages shouldn’t matter. That’s how I got through the first 5 or so missions in the campaign, the only thing that was missing is the achievements.

  21. Jarenth says:

    I went as a guy who lives in continental Europe and is now technically an adult, so he has to buy his own candies on a day that is not mechanically all that different from any other Sunday, no matter what dollar-eyed marketing executives would like us to accept and believe.

    I like your Halloween better, though.

    1. Someone says:

      Wow, I pretty much had the same costume.

  22. Heron says:

    We went to a party as a Star Trek away team. By which I mean I put on a blue shirt and pinned on the communicator that came with my Star Trek Online collector’s edition, my wife made paper copies of that for herself and my daughter, and she wore a red shirt and my daughter wore a yellow onesie. And we were wearing jeans. I guess they weren’t really good costumes…

    But that was Saturday. Sunday I dressed as a guy who stayed at home to watch Psych on Netflix…

    1. Dev Null says:

      I went as a Red Shirt a few years back. The trick was getting the tentacles looping over my shoulder to stay on while dancing. And the teeth marks in my arm were hard to get right.

      1. Mari says:

        I have a friend who stole that idea from you this year. Well, not really. Neither of you is exactly the first to go as a dead redshirt.

  23. Amnestic says:

    I went as a guy who sat at home and played Assassin’s Creed 2.

    Next year I’ll be going as a BLU Spy with a Towering Pile o’ Hats, or possibly Phoenix Wright.

    1. The Freshmaker says:

      I really hope the new Phoenix Wright game and the new Professor Layton game comes out in the US.. =D

  24. Matt K says:

    I went as Professor Layton but no one knew who I was (one guy thought I was Al Capone but he was very drunk and the closest was “Someone from Dickens”.

  25. Adalore says:

    Another inactive guy, but I really didn’t have any thing planned for the evening and I just stayed home because it was nicer.

    Maybe next month I will go and put together a nice costume with CHAINMAIL! D:<

  26. Joe Cool says:

    My wife was Uhura, I was evil McCoy (with goatee), and my 15-month old son was Kirk.

  27. Brandon says:

    I went as a student who stayed home and worked on a Management paper and studied for a Math midterm I had the day after.

    But I did have ambition. I’d shaved my beard into an awesome likeness of Tony Stark, and had gotten a suit together. You know. Just in case someone invited me out.

  28. Groboclown says:

    I went in a Hugo Ball costume. My daughter went as a fairy.

  29. kmc says:

    I accidentally went as an Oklahoma fan.

  30. RejjeN says:

    I am so going to make a Woodman costume for next year!

  31. Someone says:

    Maybe I am just completely ignorant, but I never understood the connection between All Saints and costumes/trick-or-treating/candy/whathaveyou. Is that a history thing?

    1. Jabrwock says:

      Wikipedia is your friend. :)

      Basically, “All Hallows Even”, ie the night before All Hallows Day (All Saints Day). Originally, the poor went door to door Nov 1st, just before Hallowmass, receiving gifts and food in preparation for prayers on All Souls Day (Nov 2).

      The practice of dressing up as evil spirits dates back to old Celtic tradition (basically if you looked like evil spirits, the evil spirits walking the earth at the festival at the end of the harvest would leave you alone).

      In the 1600s the two acts (dressing up as spirits, and going door to door asking for food/drink) blended together in Scotland. It became the All Saints Day equivalent of Christmas wassailing.

  32. Reach says:

    I went as Dr. McNinja. It was the first time I’ve put on a costume in a couple of years, I decided to do it because they were having “hero day” at my school. Apparently I looked intimidating in it? They made me take my mask off, which was lame, considering that that was the only “ninja” part of my costume. Maybe I’ll keep it for Comic-Con or something.

    1. That’s funny, I have a friend who went as Dr. McNinja as well. Small world I guess.

    2. HeroOfHyla says:

      Re: Theme days at school.
      My high school had a crazy hat day one time.
      You had to pay $5 or so for a pass to be allowed to do it. If you didn’t have one, you got in trouble for the “no hats on inside” rule. Wigs didn’t count as hats, so they were totally banned.
      Yeah, that was an odd school.

  33. ngthagg says:

    I went as Dr. Octopus (the movie version). It was pretty sweet.

  34. Loki says:

    I dressed as “just some guy” in a bathrobe carrying a towel, who had very strange things happen to him. Simple but effective.

  35. Jabrwock says:

    I went as Zorro, my wife as a witch, my 2-year-old went as a T-Rex, and my 5-year-old went as a pirate-princess. We also had some friends over, they came as die-hard CFL football fans (and a game was on, Go Riders!), with their newborn dressed as Tigger, and their 6-year old dressed as Snow White. My wife’s 20-year-old niece was a pregnant nun, her boyfriend was a gorilla. Some other friends showed up, with their 4-year-old dressed as a witch, complete with cauldron and giant spoon.

    I wanted to be Dr. Insano, but the glasses didn’t arrive in the mail in time. :(

  36. somebodys_kid says:

    I went as Agent Smith. It’s very difficult to sit down with a (toy) Desert Eagle strapped to your hip.

    1. KremlinLaptop says:

      There’s a reason why the DE is a movie villain gun and not really used… for anything practical in the real world. The damn thing is a cannon.

      1. Mari says:

        There is a practical use for DEs in the real world. Target practice. I carry mine in a nice case so no sitting down difficulties. Fire a few dozen rounds, pack it up, and move on to another weapon that doesn’t cause numbness and tingling in my arm :-P But they’re so, so – sexy. I had to have one, which required justification.

  37. Bogan the Mighty says:

    You stole my costume Shamus. So does this mean you’ll be ready to join us in multiplayer soon?

  38. BeardedDork says:

    I went as a 30 something guy who worked from 8pm to 8am the night before and so was sleeping. I had planned on going as Aquaman, and am considering going down to the fabric store right now to get the stuff I need to finish my costume. Because that’s the sort of geek I am I guess.

  39. Strangeite says:

    What a bunch of party poopers? Since Halloween has been my favorite holiday since I was tiny, I just have a hard time understanding why ever doesn’t get into the spirit of the season.

    I have been extremely busy so my costume was pretty simple. I went as myself circa 2015. But wearing the 2015 fashion choices as shown in Back to the Future II. Getting the dress shirt to look right while wearing 2 ties was the hardest part.

    Wife was a shadow nymph. 4 year old daughter was Supergirl and 4 month old son was a zombie.

  40. Philip says:

    My wife, newborn daughter and I all went as bees, so we were a bee family.

  41. scowdich says:

    I was a part of 2 nearly-complete Team Fortress 2 teams; I played RED engineer. Everyone agreed that I and the RED medic had the best costumes.

    1. Amnestic says:

      Don’t suppose you happen to know where the Spies picked up their balaclavas from? Trying to put one together myself but finding a matching balaclava is proving a little troublesome.

      1. scowdich says:

        Black balaclavas from a surplus shop. A number of the other costumes were half-assed at the lats minute; the RED heavy, for instance, was quarter-assed with a full head of hair, a large Nerf gun, and a red t-shirt.

        1. Amnestic says:

          But they’re not Black they’re Dark Blue/Red respectively…:( Damn, really thought I would finally get somewhere with this issue. Everything else (barring the Butterfly knife, which is decidedly illegal in the UK, still figuring a workaround) is falling into place rather easily but the bastard balaclava is driving me nuts.

          I went through over 20 pages of eBay auctions and found *one* which *sort of* looked appropriate, but it was too bright and there wasn’t a mouth hole.

  42. Psivamp says:

    I went as the Vault Dweller. No one got it.

    1. Bret says:

      Same.

      Seemed oddly popular this year.

  43. Vladius says:

    A mighty pirate. (Not Guybrush, unfortunately.)

  44. bit says:

    I was a Road Crew Worker. I worked on the road with my, Red, Sign.

    Slow to 20 MPH.

    Look at that woman’s breasts. They are large.

    Thank god it is Friday.

  45. DaveMc says:

    Hey, my son went as Batman, too! I initially thought of going as “a batman” by dressing up as an aide in the British army, but I couldn’t figure out how to pull it off. So I went as Superman. We were the World’s Finest. :)

  46. Valan says:

    Black hat from XKCD. With a staple gun and a handful of captions.

  47. Vegedus says:

    Starcraft II, eh? I was wondering when you’d tackle that one. Having played since beta, I’ll be looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it and raging at every critique you do.

    As for Halloween, I went to a Grease-themed party as guy-who-couldn’t-be-bothered-to-dress-up-so-just-threw-on-a-nice-shirt. We don’t officially celebrate halloween, so eh.

  48. Aldowyn says:

    I was going to go as Harry Potter (I happen to look a fair bit like Radcliffe, and with the movie coming in… 17 days, seemed appropriate) but I couldn’t be bothered.

    Instead I went as the nerd in his room playing Mass Effect while his parents went as Rangers fans watching them get beat in the World Series.

  49. Varewulf says:

    I didn’t really have a full costume, but I did get a pointy hat, for which I was happy. :) Halloween still a kinda new thing over here. Not completely psyched about imported holidays, but at least it’s fun for the kids.

    Now, where’s Spoiler Warning?!

    1. ulrichomega says:

      Not that I’m not really thankful for this comic, but I’ve been waiting for so long for some spoilers! I need my fix!

      1. Halfling says:

        Seriously, I am starting to get the shakes.

        1. bit says:

          Well, it looks like the lot of you are acting rather…

          *sunglasses*

          Spoiled.

          YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

  50. Helm says:

    I went as a Vampire (true blood type) that morphed into a drunk by the end of the party hehe

  51. squishydish says:

    A co-worker said he was surprised his son didn’t want to go as Batman — because his son dresses up like Batman EVERY DAY. I was so charmed by this story that I forgot what he actually did wear Sunday night.

    I participated in a Zombie Walk for Hunger (the horde collected canned goods for a food bank) on Oct. 23, so all I did on Halloween was throw on an FBI T-shirt and ballcap and hand out candy to trick-or-treaters.

  52. qwksndmonster says:

    I was a marching band nerd at the New York Championships. We got third. Meh.

  53. McNutcase says:

    I went as a dude going round to a friend’s place to eat, play board games, and hang out.

    Next year, I think it’s my turn to host that…

  54. Matt C. says:

    Early in the evening I dressed up as a mad scientist and took my daughters trick or treating. They dressed up as a pair of dragons.
    Later on I dressed up as a guy playing Minecraft and eating the “daddy tax” candy.

  55. I’ve always wondered, is Halloween anywhere near as big a deal in the US as American TV seems to make out – houses covered in decorations, the whole neighbourhood going out in impressive costumes, big Halloween parties and so on.

    I know that some level of exaggeration is pretty much inevitable, but at least with something like Xmas there is some resemblance between the TV version and my own experience, whereas where I live in the UK you could easily go through the whole day without even noticing it was Halloween – I have literally never seen any decorations beyond a pumpkin, and tend to average about 2 or 3 groups of trick or treaters (almost invariably a few small children under the age of 10 accompanied by a parent who doesn’t bother to dress up) a year. Is it really so much bigger in the US or has Hollywood just made that whole thing up?

    1. Mari says:

      It really is a much bigger holiday in the US. Yes, Hollywood exaggerates it somewhat. Certainly we don’t all turn our front lawns into animatronic haunted houses or anything. But a drive around the average US city after Oct. 1 will remind you that Halloween is around the corner. Jack-o-lanterns lined up on porches, cobwebs clinging to doorways, big silly spiders and spooky ghosts flapping in the wind. It’s all very commercial. And a peek inside any variety store (think Target/Walmart) will reveal literally hundreds of cheap vinyl “costumes” for your kiddos to beg for.

      And, honestly, it’s turned into a weeks-long thing. When I was a kid Halloween happened on Oct. 31. Now the “festivities” for my own kids start back around the 25th and last up to the night itself. They include school fairs, community sponsored haunted houses, community or church sponsored “safe” trick-or-treating events, church sponsored “alternative” Halloween events, trick-or-treating for various charitable causes, parties/hayrides/barn dances, concerts, and more.

      And yet this year I only got 5 groups of trick-or-treaters. It could have been because Halloween was on a “school night” (have to be at school the next morning) but we’ve had it on school nights before and had much larger turnout. I was almost sad I had to eat all that leftover candy myself. But not really.

      Also, the trick-or-treating age threshold is much higher here. I handed candy to one group of girls Sunday night that probably drove themselves to my house (so 16+ years old) and wore “costumes” that I wouldn’t let my HUSBAND see me in. I really don’t want to know what kind of “treats” they were hoping for.

  56. Veloxyll says:

    L4D hunter!

    And oooh, Singleplayer SC2 or Multiplayer?

  57. Catbunny says:

    I opened the door, and my husband handed out the candy… since I couldn’t really see what I was doing through the ALF mask I was wearing.
    Scared some of the kids… including one dressed as Freddy Krueger. :)
    And one parent shouted “Gordon Shumway!”
    I’ll count that as a WIN. :D

  58. Zaxares says:

    I went with the same costume as you, Shamus! Only he was playing Dragon Age instead of Starcraft 2. How are you enjoying that, by the way? :)

  59. Dan says:

    I went as a guy who sat in his friend’s dining room playing the STAR WARS rpg.

  60. wtrmute says:

    It was general election day in my country, so I went as the guy who voted and then travelled 150 km so his wife could vote, too. Good times; too bad the guy I voted for lost.

  61. Galad says:

    I wanted to go as a pirate but, in a typical for me manner, left acquiring the costume for the last possible moment and it turned out the store had moved elsewhere. Fortunately, before the party a couple of girls managed to make out of a black rag a nice headwrap bandana for me. And due to the lack of sharp scissors we had to substitute the eye patch with black paint covering the eye. Not bad, and it was fun. Best part of it? Laughing my ass off every 5-10 seconds at others’ drunken stories at 6 am the morning at the end of the after party :)

  62. SnowballinHell says:

    I revisited a costume i made when i was 7, “CARDBOARD ROBOT !!!” *dramatic music*
    this time though i didn’t have my mom and dad to help me, and i only had 1 night to make it….but the results seemed to please everyone, was the head of many a conga line and was forced to do “The Robot” all night
    I always enjoy making my costumes more then buying them

  63. Julia says:

    I took my twins trick-or-treating. He was Mr. Incredible, without the mask, same as last year, with the addition of a hat with cat ears on it. (You can’t go wrong with cat ears, right?) She was a princess.

    A couple of days before Halloween, she asked me what I wanted to be for Halloween. I replied, “Yo’ mama.” My husband got a good laugh out of that one.

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