Roy decides to get a substitute weapon, but instead gets an empty shop and a wiseass owner.
Cast[]
Transcript[]
- Panel 1, Page 1
Roy: Good morning!
Jiminy: Good morning, sir! Welcome to the Polearm Emporium!
Roy: Thank you, my good man.
Jiminy: What can I do for you, sir?
- Panel 2, Page 1
Roy: My greatsword seems to have been rent in twain, and being as my venture to reconstruct it has been temporarily quelled, I require a suitable proxy for my broken behest.
- Panel 3, Page 1
Jiminy: Eh?
Roy: I need a new weapon.
Jiminy: Certainly, sir! What can I get for you?
- Panel 4, Page 1
Roy: Well, I've always wanted to try a ranseur.
Jiminy: I'm afraid we're fresh out of ranseurs, sir.
- Panel 5, Page 1
Roy: Never mind, how about a good halberd then?
Jiminy: I'm afraid we never have them this time of year. We get newly forged ones in the spring.
- Panel 6, Page 1
Roy: Hmmm. Well, stout yeoman, a sturdy trident, if you please.
Jiminy: Ah! They've been on order for two weeks, sir. I was expecting them this morning.
- Panel 7, Page 1
Roy: It's not my lucky day, is it? A partisan, then.
Jiminy: Sorry, sir.
Roy: Awl pike?
Jiminy: Sorry.
Roy: Bill hook?
Jiminy: No.
Roy: Any corseques, perchance, bat-wing or otherwise?
Jiminy: Ummm... No.
- Panel 8, Page 1
Roy: Fauchard?
Jiminy: No.
Roy: Military fork?
Jiminy: No.
Roy: Fauchard-forks?
Jiminy: No.
Roy: Naginata? Nagamaki? Fukoro yari?
Jiminy: No.
- Panel 9, Page 1
Roy: Voulge, perhaps?
Jiminy: Ahh! We have voulges, yessir.
Roy: You do!?! Excellent! I'll have one of them.
Jiminy: Yes. It's... oh, it's a bit heavy.
Roy: Oh, I like heavy weapons.
Jiminy: Well... it's very heavy, actually.
Roy: No matter! Fetch hither the voulge.
Jiminy: I think it's a bit heavier then you like it, sir.
Roy: I don't care how frelling heavy it is, hand it over.
- Panel 10, Page 1
Jiminy: OK, here it is—
Jiminy: Ohhhh! Termites got it. Ate the handle straight through.
Roy: ...
Roy: Did they?
Jiminy: Yes. Quite the problem 'round here.
Roy: ...
- Panel 1, Page 2
Roy: Scythe?
Jiminy: No.
Roy: Bardiche?
Jiminy: No.
Roy: Poleaxe?
Jiminy: No.
Roy: Lochaber axe?
Jiminy: No.
Roy: Bohemian earspoon?
Jiminy: Not today, sir, no.
- Panel 2, Page 2
Roy: You do HAVE some polearms don't you?
Jiminy: Of course. It's a polearm shop. We have—
Roy: No, no! I'd like to guess.
Jiminy: Fair enough.
Roy: Bec de corbin?
Jiminy: No.
Roy: Ox tongue?
Jiminy: Mmmm... No.
- Panel 3, Page 2
Roy: Spetum?
Jiminy: Yes, definitely.
Roy: Ah, well, I'll have one of those, then.
Jiminy: Oh! I thought you were asking if I'd spayed the cat.
Roy: ...
Jiminy: Just good sense, y'know.
Roy: ...
Cat: Meow?
- Panel 4, Page 2
Roy: Glaive?
Jiminy: No.
Roy: Guisarme?
Jiminy: No.
Roy: Glaive-guisarme?
Jiminy: No.
Roy: Guisarme-glaive?
Jiminy: No.
Roy: Glaive-guisarme-glaive?
Jiminy: No.
Roy: Glaive-glaive-glaive-guisarme-glaive?
Jiminy: I think you're drifting into another sketch, sir.
- Panel 5, Page 2
Roy: Ah, how about the longspear?
Jiminy: Don't have much call for longspears.
Roy: Don't have much—It's the single most popular polearm in the world!
- Panel 6, Page 2
Jiminy: Not around here, sir.
Roy: Oh? And what's the most popular polearm around here?
Jiminy: Lucern hammers, sir.
- Panel 7, Page 2
Roy: Sigh. Do you have an lucern hammers?
Jiminy: Nnnnnnnnnno. Fresh out.
Roy: That one was my fault, really. I should have known better by now.
- Panel 8, Page 2
Roy: Have you, in fact, got any polearms here at all?
Jiminy: Yes, sir.
Roy: Really?
Jiminy: No. Not really, sir.
Roy: You haven't
Jiminy: No sir. Not a one. I was deliberately wasting your time, sir.
- Panel 9, Page 2
Roy glares at the owner.
- Panel 10, Page 2
Roy: You realize that if I could actually purchase a weapon, I would stab you with it now?
Jiminy: The irony is staggering, sir, yes.
D&D Context[]
- The Nomenclature of Pole Arms was an article by D&D creator Gary Gygax which first appeared in Dragon magazine #22. It was subsequently included as an appendix to Gygax's final contribution to D&D before being forced out of TSR, the 1985 AD&D (1st edition) rules supplement, Unearthed Arcana. For many players this was their first introduction into the varied world of medieval pole arms. Most of the non-silly types of pole arms mentioned in this strip are categorized in this article.
Trivia[]
- As referenced in the title, the entire comic is a recreation of Monty Python's Cheese Shop Sketch, in which a man attempts to buy some cheese at a cheese shop.
- The animals that appear in the foreground each have their own meaning:
- The (dead) parrot is a reference to the Dead Parrot Sketch.
- A cat was mentioned in the original sketch for having eaten one of the cheeses.
- The snake is a reference to the group's name, "Monty Python".
- Roy's increasingly complex "glaive-guisarme" requests are a reference to another Monty Python sketch, Spam (which is why the shop owner tells him they're drifting into another sketch). The glaive-guisarme is a real type of pole arm, one which "to the heavier and longer glaive head was added a guisarme hook to enable the wielder to jerk horsemen from their seats."
- In the original sketch, the customer actually pulls out a gun and kills the shop owner.
- The "glaive glaive glaive guisarme glaive" originally appeared in a mock "Random Polearm Generation" table, published in The Space Gamer #74, May/June 1985, by Steve Jackson Games. The table was an entry by a reader named Jim Simons into a "Write a table for generating something useless" contest. The entries were also reprinted in the collection Murphy's Rules.
- This is the first appearance of Jiminy, the proprietor of the Polearm Emporium, as well as his cat. Much later, in #942, it is revealed that the shopkeeper's name is Jiminy, and he is actually Haley's cousin, being the son of Geoff and Ivy, Ian Starshine's sister.