Comic 1119 - Undoing

My wind turbine powers a fan
Which blows a ball into a can
Which sets off a switch
For a solar lamp, which
I’m using to top up my tan.

Original comic here.

Comic 1116 - Traffic Lights

I drive to the city some nights
And park up to look at the lights.
Red, amber and green:
What on earth might they mean?
But the sight of them always delights.

Original comic here.

Comic 1115 - Sky

There was a man from Camden Town
Who pottered about upside down.
If you wanted to rile
Him, you’d only to smile
But he’d always delight in a frown.

Original comic here.

Comic 1110 - Click and Drag

Any print comic you care to name
Is limited by its own frame
But webcomics ain’t
Subject to that constraint;
I wish limericks could do the same, but they are governed by quite rigid rules about line length, scantion and rhyme scheme which can’t really be broken without compromising the integrity of the piece. If you want an impossibly tall tower, or a balloon ride, or a warren of underground tunnels, you can't just extend the format to include them - you either have to find a way to work them into the syllables available, or leave it for another time. If I had the space, I could write about rainbows playing hide and seek in the spray from waterfalls tumbling into forest pools, or playful mole-eating kobolds tapping secrets into your dreams by night. I could zoom out to reveal a beachy shoreline stretching hundreds of miles in one direction, and mysterious crags disappearing away in the other, and every cave would be home to sad, pale, blinking eyes, and every grain of sand would be the key to another universe. Inland, people would be working and talking and playing and relaxing and arguing and making up again, all those things that people do, and some of them would write their own poetry too, each of which could be as endless as mine around them, and richer and more full of delights, and some would actually rhyme properly and contain original metaphors. And as the seasons changed and the world spun around, the limerick would go on and on and on, turning corners and throwing up bumps in the road and bursting out into splashes of colour at the most unexpected times. But I can't do any of that - or at least not all at once. I recognise the limitations of my chosen form, on paper, online, or anywhere, and they must be observed. Sometimes the best that can be hoped is to raise a single half-smile, sometimes there might be more, sometimes an idea might crystallise and stay in your head for some while. Sometimes the poem will be forgotten as soon as it's read, or not even finished. The writer's job is to make a virtue of constraint, just as the artist uses the picture frame as an essential part of the composition. But it's only natural to yearn, occasionally, to step outside the frame and frolic in the fields beyond.

Original comic here.

Classic comic 614 - Woodpecker

There once was a young man from Mecca
Who met a one-year-old woodpecker.
But something was lacking:
A card, shiny packing
And --gasp!-- a deluxe Black and Decker.

Original comic here.

Comic 1099 - Tuesdays

Terrifying or terrific?
The answer is context-specific.
Endless wings may be bitchin’
In a restaurant kitchen
But on you they’d be kind of horrific.

Original comic here.

Comic 1095 - Crazy Straws

There once was a young man from Tours
Who loved to design crazy straws.
He went online to find
Hobbyists of like mind
And they argued for weeks without pause.

Original comic here.

Comic 1092 - Michael Phelps

Michael Phelps is a slippery phellow—
For all you might might gesture and bellow
He’ll zoom up and down
Any pool in your town
Till you go nuclear and use jello.

Original comic here.

Comic 1087 - Cirith Ungol

There lurks a beast in Cirith Ungol
In atmosphere gloomy and fungal
Her heart black as night
Who quotes... EB White?!
When spinning her spiderweb jungle.

Original comic here.

Comic 1086 - Eyelash Wish Log

One starts dabbling with recursive wishes
And the meta-ness seems quite delicious
But that old jobsworth djinn
Just will not let you win
And you'll wish you'd not been so ambitious.

That's for the main theme of the comic, but the line about banishing TV show bores into their own obsessions ought not to be overlooked:

The next time an eyelash slides out
I shall wish for the magical clout
To banish those bros
Who go on about shows
To the shows that they go on about.

Original comic here.

Comic 1081 - Argument Victory

However relentless you beeeeee
You never can out-argue meeeeee
From plums to percussion
I'll win the discussion
How? Whoosh down a waterslide. Wheeeeee!

Original comic here.

Comic 1064 - Front Door

As I walk to my door, looking cool (ish)
My thoughts tend to turn to the ghoulish.
I quicken my pace
Though there's never a trace
Of real danger. I look rather foolish.

Original comic here.

I don't know whether you noticed, or whether it worked, but what I tried to do here was quicken the rhythm of the limerick through the third and fourth lines, before the abrupt halt in the fifth. To match the quickening pace in the graph, you see.

Comic 1049 - Bookshelf

In my library, Atlas Shrugged’s placed
So the unwary reader is faced
With a room dank and dark
And a candlelit plaque
Telling him he has terrible taste.

Original comic here.

Comic 1038 - Fountain

A brolly, if you use your brain,
Can do more than just keep off the rain.
With the thrust of this fountain
I'm king of the mountain—
Now, how do I get down again?

Original comic here.

Comic 1031 - s/Keyboard/Leopard

From LA to the Eastern Seaboard
We all wish we had a pet keyboard.
You'll be in no jeopardy
As you tap at your leopard-y,
So long as you've had the beast de-clawed.

Original comic here.

Comic 1030 - Keyed

It's over? I'll deface your car
In a fashion that's frankly bizarre.
Whichever type be it,
Ferrari or Fiat,
I'll key it, you'll see from afar.

Original comic here.

Comic 1024 - Error Code

When computers won't dance to your tune
Don't waste the entire afternoon.
Instead, why not take
Time to sit by a lake,
Or preferably a lagoon?

Original comic here.

What a lovely, non-computery-minded way to celebrate the very computery-minded 1024 milestone. Let's skim stones.

Comic 1022 - So It Has Come To This

When your brain’s inspiration has slumped
And some new info leaves you quite stumped
Just frown, and then hiss
SO IT HAS COME TO THIS
And the tension is instantly pumped.

Original comic here.

Comic 1011 - Baby Names

There was a girl from Southend-on-Sea
Whose proud father christened her “Ponzi”.
But the name he enjoyed
Only got her annoyed—
She wished she were a boy, like Beyoncé.

Original comic here.

You have to put the stress in "Southend-on-Sea" on the syllable "on". Can you do that for me?

Plus: I seem to be flooding the site with limericks at the moment, but no matter. Here is some more, celebrity-based, BONUS CONTENT:

There was a chanteuse named Beyoncé
Who became a top rapper's fiancee.
So streetwise Shawn Carter
Is now the proud father
Of baby Blue Ivy. Bit poncey?

Comic 1000 - 1000 Comics

The one thousand comic mark is
Regrettably lacking in fizz.
Ten-to-the-three
Is just fiddle-dee-dee—
It's two-to-the-ten that's the biz.

Original comic here.