Beach bum scrimshaw
Surfers always want a bloody tattoo saying something like “sand and water rule my mind” or “catch a tube” or “gnarly air grawg” or something like that. They’re obsessed with the bloody sea and trying to ride it like a bloody horse. Rumbelows was a UK electrical goods retailer that went bust when I was in my final year of school, 1995. A sad, sad day. Here’s a fact you’ll like: Rumbelows at some point bought out Brian Epstein’s NEMS stores, which you will no doubt be well aware of as a cornerstone of my comics universe.
Should that be “IVVANT” there?
I haven’t studied Latin since I was 16 so don’t hold me to any kind of standard, Ray.
Friendly notes: noun-modifier construction is typical of Latin, but the demonstrative adjective, ‘hic,’ is an exception normally coming before the noun. Also ‘munus’ is neuter despite the -us ending (it’s 3rd declension) so the adjective would be ‘hoc’ in the nominative case. Most likely though, the noun phrase should be dative case (dative of reference or dative of purpose), making the first line ‘HUIC MUNERI’.
3rd person singular ‘iuvat’ is correct assuming you are going for an impersonal with the infinitive ‘insanire’ as subject. I see no problems here.
I assume Brian dd the inscription using Google Translate (Zambian Translate?)
The Church of Satan isn’t known for its adherence to Latin Grammar prescriptivism.
Like, did you know that actual classical Latin is dreadfully lacking in grätuitöus ümläüts? This was presumably a massive disappointment for Brian, so you’ll forgive him if he didn’t feel like bothering to look harder for proper Latin grammar.
Indeed. I’m göing tö gö öut ön a limb and suggest Brian’s knöwledge of Latin is pröbably 99%+ derived fröm öld heavy metal album cövers.
Google translates ‘huic muneri iuvat insanire’ as ‘wellcdaft like mad.’
I did the inscription as it is — Munus hic iuvat insanire — and it came up with, “This function like mad.”
You don’t have to be [wellc]daft to understand Google Translate, but it helps.
Google Translate is pretty good for a lot of languages, but Latin seems to reduce it to gibbering insanity more often than not.
I was assuming the engraving was “You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps.” I don’t think munus can work in that context, but hic should be correct so long as it’s “here”, not “this”
Oh yes, that would change everything. I was starting from munus as a noun and working from there: e.g. “for this job it helps to be crazy”
That’s easy for you to say.
“Romanes eunt domus”?!
The CoS may not be known for fair labor practices, but they’re supposed to understand self-interest. Screw over the senior staff and you will wake up chained to the altar as the centerpiece in a sacrifice to the Elder Gods
I’ll be surprised but delighted if this arc ends up being about how Billie is able to organize the Church staff. “Infernal Order of Sacrificers, Blasphemers and General Satanic Labourers” or some such.
I’m still rooting for Mayor Billie, myself!
For their mascot, they can hire Snoopy, now that he’s free from his Met Life gig.
Is that Latin for “you don’t have to be mad to work here but it helps?”
Yes, I had a few tries at wording it correctly to get a nice neat motto.
I took 2 years of Latin back in the dark days of attending school… and I think I learned more in this comment thread than I learned in those 2 years! If only there were more phrases like this one, I might have almost paid attention!
I very much appreciate Baphomet’s old school tie. Oxford, right?
Did Belial attend Balliol?
As his Wimsey takes him?
Really hoping that what ever is about to transpire leads to Tom getting kicked out of the COF and maybe Billie replacing him. I admit being a bit concerned for her soul though.
More ironic would be Tom *working for* Billie. But who knows, maybe that’s what his tormented soul desires.
At the end the statue looks alive and menacing. Finally Baphomet is alone with Billie! It probably was looking forward for this. Brian is simply the best! A true friend, always ready to help her with life, satanic things and to paint mystical marks all over her body.
I thought for a second the Church of Satan had a fancy sign on the roof, and then I realised.
I watched “The Suicide Squad” this past weekend, and was reminded of these comics because labels/messages like that would pop up in the film. For instance soap bubbles around the rim of a toilet spelling out “Three Days Earlier”. I assume it’s a regular thing in comic books, but I don’t read many of those.
Real friends set up an altar to Baphomet so you can get employment.
Baphomet, the original LinkedIn recruiter.
Even Baphomet has to go with the times – and hence wears a tie! 😀
I think the tie was added to make this an employment shrine.
The youth of today. Hit one little snag and like a flash, praying to demons and other dark creatures for help. HAVE YOU TRIED VISITING THE LIBRARY BILINDA
I’m sure the CoS has quite a nice library.
I mean, not ‘nice’ nice. But, well-stocked.
I took 2 years of Latin back in the dark days of attending school… and I think I learned more in this comment thread than I learned in those 2 years! If only there were more phrases like this one, I might have almost paid attention!
“Beach Bum Scrimshaw”. Great band name!
Little double meaning for “beach bum” here.
I *really* don’t have a good feeling about this.
Baphomet mug with MUNUS HIC IUVAT INSANIRE inscription in merch store when?
Not questioning Brians’s airtight backstory but more curious how many surfers are there in the UK? Looking at the Olympics the only commonwealth country to participate seems to the folks from down under. Does he get a lot of repeat business?
Cornwall is a huge spot for surfing. Rest of the UK, not much. Plus it’s quite seasonal and not exactly warm.
I heard a story once, quite apocryphal, about a surfer or surfers so masterful and bored with ordinary surfing that he/she/they attempted to surf freezing, 40-foot-high waves in the North Sea.
Almost certainly an urban legend, of course, but a fanciful panel in my imagination all the same.
In that corner of the country… many many thousands? I think there are meant to be about half a million surfers in the UK and Cornwall is the hotbed of it. It’s the home of Surfers Against Sewage, which is is much bigger organisation than you’d think!
Mrs. Clovis’ surfboard would be a piece of plywood with a round front end bent up in a slight curve, and you surfed on your front. That’s what I learned on. None of this standing up Malibu Board nonsense.
Thanks to both of you for jumping in there and providing the extra context!
I just never think of the Atlantic countries having much surfing activity.
Yep. IANAS, but waves around most of the UK are not much cop, and Sewage against Surfers is sometimes better organised, but it’s there. If you want monster waves, try Portugal in autumn.
I recall an Easter week vacation at the coast of County Clare and remarking at the number of Irish surfers.
Lots of surfers on our waves in the North East – hard to believe, but true.
Despite the fact that even at height of summer the water is bitterly cold and still largely composed of minature icebergs, and the coastlines are edged with razor sharp hard rocky stuff.
I never quite know where to put Brian on the whole good/evil scale. It’s one of the things I like about him as a character. Is he trying to be legitimately helpful? Does he have ulterior motives for helping? Does he want Billie to damn her soul so he doesn’t have to be lonely? Can’t wait to see!
I get the sense that he’s not really what you’d call ‘”good” or “evil” (though I think he’s got some “potentially good” in him, which has been coming out more due to Billie’s influence), so much as “pure chaos”.
Brian’s the most pure Satanist there is, I think.
He definitely does what he wilst!
He’s definitely ‘pure’ sometimes…
I think it depends on many things: the current phase of the moon, the current progression through his latest case of beer, the amount of “young Christian leg” in the vicinity, the scheduling of his latest lift of Big Ken as greased or ungreased, etc. etc. etc.
(TL:DR – Alaric’s answer looks right to me.)
They have surfers in Britain?
Scott you have not read today’s comments, where this is “dealt with” already
Billie’s lament makes me wonder how the Church of Satan in Britain is organized and financed. Probably not via taxes. More likely a private corporation supported by wealthy patrons with varying motivations. But is it a centralized operation like Walmart, or a franchise operation like Burger King? To the point, WHO should be paying the people who work at Tredreygyn’s church?
There isn’t a point in this story where I have space to examine the hierarchy of the CoS but you’re mostly right, except imagine that new McDonalds franchises only took form when they disagreed with the existing corporate viewpoint.
Yes, about the surfers question, sorry, I missed the part where you addressed that.
Oh the poignancy!
“Best of luck
COMMA
lovey.”
Poor unrequited Brian!
Brian is either a REAL quick worker, or the CoS has these “blank” shrines in storage – you pull one out for the Infernal Patron of Your Choice, then carve and adorn as circumstances require.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they had the shrine ready to go. However, it sounds like it needs to be consecrated each time it’s used. Which makes sense – you could use a toilet seat as a shrine, if it were properly consecrated.
It’s inflatable.
To paraphrase Brian in panel, “The wages of sin are…bupkis.”
That should be panel 4. Number keypad turned itself off.
Dat’s pure poetry. 🙂
That’s a good fact about Rumbelow’s and NEMS. I can just imagine Brian carting fridge-freezers around at the back of the Bodmin branch, or maybe giving extensive advice on the features of a hi-fi midi system.
For some reason, I picture Brian in his youth trying to do electronics sales the same way Kelly Turnbull pictured Kratos trying to do the same:
https://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/comic/02222010
So Brian was in Rammstein? I imagine it is quite the sacrifice for him to burn those paystubs!!
As a roady I’d assume…
He was just a Rammstein roadie, i think.
I was picturing him as a stand in while someone had the flu….
It would be hilarious if that’s what he told everybody, but the truth is that all he did was “stand in” the backstage area until someone mistakenly assumed he was a roadie and started paying him to haul amplifiers around for the next few years.