According to the manual – Chapter 1, Strip 58

As battle is joined between the forces of light and the hordes of darkness, Prof. Dr. gets to relive some happy childhood moments.

And in other news, the B-Movie Comic now has it’s own forum.

There’s new fanart by Maria and Michelle of kudasai.stripspace.com in the fanart thread in the forum! Yay! Many thanks and lovies go there, by foot, if necessary!

On with the text:

I admit the b-movie comic has had it’s share of phantastic and implausible events up to now, all with the undead pharaoh, hypnosis, clairvoyance, earclips appearing out of nothingness, the sandstorm, more walking mummies…
But this one really beats it all, it’s completely inconceivable even in b-movie terms – A GUY ACTUALLY READING A MANUAL! I tell you, I’ve never seen one all my life, not even heard of one from reliable sources. (Yes I know there are a lot of stories out there of guys reading manuals, but that’s like the Loch Ness monster. In both cases, the pictures are all grainy and it looks like a floating log. And the guy who claims he has seen it smells of whiskey.)
And yes, I HAVE seen a walking, talking corpse in reality. But I shouldn’t be talking about my former teachers here…

Speculations abound, naturally, what it is that prevents guys from reading manuals, but I think it’s the stone age hunter’s pride. Somehow, an atavistic part of the human brain still nurtures the memory of the dangers and difficulties of mammoth hunting, and the triumphant feast afterwards. Nobody needed a manual back then, and how can programing a VCR measure up to facing, armed only with a puny wooden spear, a gargantuan wooly beast bearing tusks of doom? Consequently, if he ever stooped as low as to reading the VCR manual, modern man could not enjoy his TV dinner afterwards, even if he managed to tape the program he wanted. If, however, he faced the challenge unaided, his manly pride and appetite are saved, even if he managed to tape 3 hours of weather channel instead of the Superbowl.

And if you wonder where the grenade is coming from, there’s a simple rule to the amount of weaponry a cast of b-movie is expected to lug around: The (attack value of their most powerful weapon) is always the (defense value of the main opponent) – 1. If the heroes face a mortal human being, they have to be unarmed. If their opponent is impervious to bullets, they carry firearms. If their opponent is also protected against fire and explosions, they carry firearms, grenades and flamethrowers. If their opponent is Godzilla, they have tanks, fighter planes, destroyers, missile launchers and lasers, but no oxygene destructor. That way, b-movies are always guaranteed to feature the maximum amount of destruction and mayhem possible without actually achieving anything.
(If you wonder why they didn’t blow up the stone slab with the grenades…well, you should read the manual. 😀 )

Anyway, Prof. Dr. uses the scientific method once more, calm study of the theoretical basis, followed by methodical application. Another thing that works only in b-movies and comics.

Oh, and in case you worried, the diagramms are of a type of grenade no longer in use, and have been de-classified a long time ago.

To reward me for not giving away military secrets, you could, for example, vote for me. On Thursday, brutal battle is joined once more. Brutal, I say.

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