I got an HPZ2100 wide format printer and a bunch of media to blow. I like printing up some of your comics in bigger wall formats or canvas if I have some leftover. If you send me your regular USPS address I will send you a few. That is snail mail US post office address.
You can check out the printer on flickr at jgury
I see you’ve changed your philosophy a little, while people get used to a lot of things, it’s change that really causes people suffering. It reminds me of a torture device invented in the evil alternate reality of Star Trek that continuously shifts where it tortures randomly in order to insure maximum suffering.
I thought the Devil lady preferred hells women to hells men, or does she like hells men, but only from a sexual perspective?
I have to say, I love every strip in this entire archive. A few of them made me cry, too. Others, laugh until I… well, cried. How one person can be so incredibly witty and insightful.. Is that the word?
Once again Mr Rowntree, you brilliantly sum up people and social situations in a funny, quirky, witty comic. By panel three, I was already hoping the guy would get beaten up (and it reminds me how I used to be that guy too, so global apologies to whoever I may have pissed off, here or anywhere else, and let karma decide the rest).
Anyone noticed how petunias and begonias never get a break in comics? They’re the go-to flowers for jokes. Probably because their names sound funny.
And Green Devil Girl has a name now, or at least a designation, woot! She’s right up there with Seven of Nine in terms of sexyness (+5 geek points to those who know).
You’ve just upped your ante Winston, this is hilarious – and are all 7 yellow shirt versions going to be available in yer new shop? I’m still trying to figure the last word of D76’s crumpled shirTruth – ‘you sad sack of…’ – you should make a competition I reckon.
I’m running out of superlatives to describe your Greatness, so I’ll leave it to everyone else.
Just watch the nice girl’s transformation from prey-ish in frame #4, to ugly male-ish in #5. Or, is this evolution ? What could ANYONE have done to deserve such a disappointment ? Yellow shirt or not.
This last week has been filled with eyes-related jokes : I’ve seen inserted rolleyes, eyeballs, tar balls (hello Gail), and PRICE PETUNIAS ! (they belong to the potato family).
benS.
P.s.
Also “Welcome to hell” page462, from nov.3 2008, gives me a kick.
I love your vision of hell, I could easily imagine Lucifer deliberately setting people up so they think they can beat the system only to slap them down.
I shall devot my life to the sciences so that I may invent a life extending serum. I shall then sneak into your home and secretly inject you with said serum, thusly may I read your awesome comics for all time.
Until I grow bored of how good they are, then its a case of “man murders three, self”
john gury: Cheers, i appreciate the offer, but it’s alright, i wouldn’t have much use for them right now, particularly as i’m out of wall space. I feel bad turning people down, but rest assured i know it’s the thought that counts so thanks for asking, man. A handshake to you!
George: I wouldn’t necessarily infer anything about my philosophy from this one. I will say i certainly agree with Ms. Estar about hell not existing.
Richter: Yeah, you’re definitely right about funny names. You don’t say he was hit by a car, you say he was hit by a chrysler (or a Studebaker!), and you definitely say prize petunias instead of flowers. Until it becomes a cliche, which it probably did 35 years ago, but, uh, oh well..
bachterman: Oh god, the shirt alone is my idea of hell…
Brian: Yeah, i’ve always loved that whole yellow kid talking via his shirt thing, kept meaning to use in a comic.
GerryB: Originally the shirt was blank as she was handing it to him, but then i realized it would be displaying her thoughts while in hand so i tossed something rude on there.
Eth-Zee: I’ve been that person too at various points in the past, so let’s say there’s an element of self-satire.
ZeaLitY: Ha, right on. I’ve run across a couple other cartoon Sphinxes in the last couple of years and they all look pretty much the same (tiaras and wings are optional), which i guess doesn’t say a lot for my imagination but oh well. At least mine doesn’t stare blankly and have friggin’ green eyeshadow.
Oh lord. ‘The shirt that displays your thoughts’? That is my hell.
In a quiet, crowded room i often can’t help imagining that everyone can hear my thoughts and then sure enough they turn to what i want to hide, before i try to drown it all out with some repetitive tune and end up sitting in class with my face all twisted up and my eyes all panicky.
I think you may have tapped into a common human phobia, Mr Rowntree…
This is often the case in my customer support job. Customers will whine and rage that they did not get an order confirmation email and after battling it out with them for 5 minutes you find out the email address they gave originally was wrong then they have to do an emotional 180 and you get a small bittersweet taste of their realisation of their idiocy and pointless antagonism. This shock to the system will only last for a few minutes for them, but for me? It keeps me going for the whole day. Fuck You customers of T***********r.
OMG this is the best comic you have ever done. It is so hilarious I can’t handle it. I think you have fully mastered the art of facial expressions by the way, it makes everything that much better. And I really want a t shirt that reads my thoughts. I’m pretty sure this is my fave it’s so clever it makes me sick. Ha.
Love you
Love how you referenced Captain Esther Goes to Heaven at the start there, very nice dude. Constantly impressed, though the scroll-over text is always nice, a bit of your perspective is cool.
Keep em coming dude, and new merchandise please! =P
I’ve discovered your website two weeks ago, and have been reading through your works from recent to past. I have to say this is one of the most excellent work I ever read online. You like to play around with tropes, and still you have some periodical strokes of genius, and I find your work full of imagination and details. I would definitely like to see “what you want to draw” in a longer strip, it is quite expressive indeed. Please keep up with your efforts.
As a member of an american-bullied minority yourself, I have no doubt you will forgive my french-broken English.
Oh crap. I just realsied I am that smartass in this strip. Just tell me where the petunias are.
Oh and – Kiss. Yep. Definetly played in hell. Poor demons. Almost feel sorry for then.
Is the devil actually an inmate herself? I was about to ask why she didn’t quit if she hated the job, and the only reason I can think of is that it must be HER punishment.
It can’t be much fun being the Random Angry Guy either.
We should all be driving electric cars if gas is polluting the world. We should be on a fast track to phase out all gas powered cars in 2 years. That should do it. Easy, right?! Problem solved. Why do I always do this? If I’ve never seen a problem before I always have an idea of how it should be fixed even if it’s been around for years. We all get these thoughts all the time but maybe it’s too much work to pay attention to them because since when do they bear fruit except for our own suffering… Waitaminute! In the movies these thoughts are always right! I must be right about this! Everyone else is stupid! I’m right!
I just spent all day reading every comic you have posted, thank you, I am a big fan now, my hat’s off to a fellow artiste! I will be checking back often for more fun and games.
I want to see more funny things that go on inside hell! There’s a comedy goldmine there, just waiting to be tapped. WINSTON, YOU ARE THE MAN TO DO THIS. Please!
It looks like you took my suggestions about proportion on board. Good job. Your comic looks a lot better. Now all you need to work on is color. I don’t know of a good book for learning that, but studying the Pre-Raphaelites would definitely make your comic a little bit nicer.
I definitely think your comics are some of the best on the web, but I definitely can’t abide net-nannying in any form. Best of wishes. Sorry.
‘Salright, man. But only just cuz you also played EarthBound, ha ha. Seriously, though, if you’re ever in the UK, come visit me. You can stay with me & my small family.
Gotta love how the “can’t win” theme is first used on the demon chick. Whatever she says to the guy, he always has an answer ready so she can’t win. In a way, that’s her own hell.
And, really, that’s what makes this comic brilliant. People like that really are hell. No matter what you say to them, they just don’t listen, they’re adamant in the supreme belief that they’re right. Nobody can scratch them since other people’s fingernails don’t even exist to them.
So annoying. Best thing to do is ignore them and wish there’s a patch of petunias waiting for them down below.
…I’m sorry, but I find it very hard to feel incredibly sympathetic to a professional torturer.
But, you know, that’s just me. You guys can schadenfreude it up if you like. After all, the guy was arrogant and sort of sexist, so he deserves to be beaten to tears, right? Right? The REAL victim here is the demon who has to put up with whining, right? Whining is so much more unconscionable than torturing, right?
Freaking awesome. It could be Buddhist Hell, Reform Catholicism Hell; it could be something BP runs to keep people in line, or say, introduce staff to their vision for an EMEA trading front for American (the continent) States. I do however think the hat on the big guy is over the top.
Heh. That guy is going to win.
Mostly on account of everything he is saying being technically accurate (as long as he sticks to his guns)…
Silly green devil woman is all “Wah! You can’t win because we say you can’t!” … and he is all like “Oh yeah? Watch me!” ….. So hell resorts to violence because it can’t win an argument. Sorta like the sphynx. Sorta like a lot of characters in this comic.
#1. Make idiot of yourself.
#2. Lose argument.
#3. Resort to violence.
The guy is going to get beaten up by the big bloke a lot. He will, however, get used to it as he originally noted. Probably rather quickly too. Easiest victory ever. Troll-faces all round.
It’s actually an easy win. You just keep thinking “a guy is gonna appear behind me enraged”, so you win because you guessed it right. And if they don’t want you to win they’ll have to prevent him from appearing. XD
Virus Comix News 
May 19, 2010 at 4:03 am
You know, I think I think that update schedules are a little unpredictable. It makes anticipation more fun!
Not sarcasm btw.
May 19, 2010 at 4:03 am
Well done. As in flambes.
May 19, 2010 at 4:08 am
This was a particularly good one.
May 19, 2010 at 4:36 am
This is better than Dante’s Inferno.
May 19, 2010 at 4:37 am
I got an HPZ2100 wide format printer and a bunch of media to blow. I like printing up some of your comics in bigger wall formats or canvas if I have some leftover. If you send me your regular USPS address I will send you a few. That is snail mail US post office address.
You can check out the printer on flickr at jgury
Jobs are hell!
May 19, 2010 at 4:46 am
Kiss doesn’t suck… 😦
May 19, 2010 at 4:48 am
I agree with the comic on Hell and Kiss.
May 19, 2010 at 4:56 am
God, it’s the pure unbridled joy of watching a guy you always wanted to punch in the nose get punched in the nose.
May 19, 2010 at 5:02 am
Mr Knowitall has feet of Petunias rather than clay in a Hell with a giant liederhosened flower gardner. Speaks for itself.
May 19, 2010 at 5:04 am
opps, that is giant bib overalled flower gardner. Liderhosen in my mind only.
May 19, 2010 at 5:07 am
I see you’ve changed your philosophy a little, while people get used to a lot of things, it’s change that really causes people suffering. It reminds me of a torture device invented in the evil alternate reality of Star Trek that continuously shifts where it tortures randomly in order to insure maximum suffering.
I thought the Devil lady preferred hells women to hells men, or does she like hells men, but only from a sexual perspective?
May 19, 2010 at 5:09 am
To those wondering why this signals a change in Winston’s philosophy, read the “Captain Estar” comic, then read this, and you’ll see.
So, do you believe in an actual hell?*
*As for me, there’d better be a hell.
May 19, 2010 at 5:23 am
A device that dishes out torture randomly is in no way suffering maximizing on a human population. Way too simplistic a rule.
May 19, 2010 at 9:02 am
Genius! ‘My prize petunias’
May 19, 2010 at 10:17 am
So the ‘staff’ of Hell have regular Petunia growing competitions, or does he slip out topside occasionally for flower shows?
/already in hell 😦
May 19, 2010 at 10:57 am
I have to say, I love every strip in this entire archive. A few of them made me cry, too. Others, laugh until I… well, cried. How one person can be so incredibly witty and insightful.. Is that the word?
Yeah, I.. I idolize you.
Looking forward to more.
May 19, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Rowntree, Rowntree, Rowntree, you dissapoint me.
You missed out the part with the giant radioactive ascetic ant-people priests! AGAIN!
I shall write to the Times about this…
*scribble scribble scribble*
May 19, 2010 at 12:50 pm
I do not exactly know how to put this without sounding smarmy.
But this is one damn good comic.
May 19, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Hell is “other people…” nice touch.
May 19, 2010 at 2:28 pm
one of your best! nice background details, concept, punchline, everything!
Great Job!
May 19, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Once again Mr Rowntree, you brilliantly sum up people and social situations in a funny, quirky, witty comic. By panel three, I was already hoping the guy would get beaten up (and it reminds me how I used to be that guy too, so global apologies to whoever I may have pissed off, here or anywhere else, and let karma decide the rest).
Anyone noticed how petunias and begonias never get a break in comics? They’re the go-to flowers for jokes. Probably because their names sound funny.
And Green Devil Girl has a name now, or at least a designation, woot! She’s right up there with Seven of Nine in terms of sexyness (+5 geek points to those who know).
May 19, 2010 at 3:36 pm
i need one of those t-shirts
May 19, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Outstanding, as always. . I had that exact argument with my best friend during our first semester of Uni.
May 19, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Funny, with a nice Yellow Kid reference!
May 19, 2010 at 4:37 pm
You’ve just upped your ante Winston, this is hilarious – and are all 7 yellow shirt versions going to be available in yer new shop? I’m still trying to figure the last word of D76’s crumpled shirTruth – ‘you sad sack of…’ – you should make a competition I reckon.
I’m running out of superlatives to describe your Greatness, so I’ll leave it to everyone else.
Superlatively superb. (damn).
May 19, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Oh. Oh dear. I’m afraid I may be that person.
May 19, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Helluva haleakala !
Last week’s bus driver at the end station !
Just watch the nice girl’s transformation from prey-ish in frame #4, to ugly male-ish in #5. Or, is this evolution ? What could ANYONE have done to deserve such a disappointment ? Yellow shirt or not.
This last week has been filled with eyes-related jokes : I’ve seen inserted rolleyes, eyeballs, tar balls (hello Gail), and PRICE PETUNIAS ! (they belong to the potato family).
benS.
P.s.
Also “Welcome to hell” page462, from nov.3 2008, gives me a kick.
May 19, 2010 at 7:35 pm
oh, man the Yellow Kid! i didn’t even get that! that’s brilliant!
May 19, 2010 at 8:04 pm
My prize petunias!
That was brilliant!
May 19, 2010 at 8:04 pm
Another awesome strip! Keep up the great work 🙂
May 19, 2010 at 9:00 pm
I love your vision of hell, I could easily imagine Lucifer deliberately setting people up so they think they can beat the system only to slap them down.
You know, just like life.
Oh you all know its true.
*Curmudgeons off*
May 19, 2010 at 9:05 pm
I shall devot my life to the sciences so that I may invent a life extending serum. I shall then sneak into your home and secretly inject you with said serum, thusly may I read your awesome comics for all time.
Until I grow bored of how good they are, then its a case of “man murders three, self”
*Creepy stare*
May 19, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Hey, Winston! Guess what I found while archiving the old Dark Horse Jonny Quest comic books:
Our favorite Sphinx!
May 20, 2010 at 2:03 am
john gury: Cheers, i appreciate the offer, but it’s alright, i wouldn’t have much use for them right now, particularly as i’m out of wall space. I feel bad turning people down, but rest assured i know it’s the thought that counts so thanks for asking, man. A handshake to you!
George: I wouldn’t necessarily infer anything about my philosophy from this one. I will say i certainly agree with Ms. Estar about hell not existing.
Richter: Yeah, you’re definitely right about funny names. You don’t say he was hit by a car, you say he was hit by a chrysler (or a Studebaker!), and you definitely say prize petunias instead of flowers. Until it becomes a cliche, which it probably did 35 years ago, but, uh, oh well..
bachterman: Oh god, the shirt alone is my idea of hell…
Brian: Yeah, i’ve always loved that whole yellow kid talking via his shirt thing, kept meaning to use in a comic.
GerryB: Originally the shirt was blank as she was handing it to him, but then i realized it would be displaying her thoughts while in hand so i tossed something rude on there.
Eth-Zee: I’ve been that person too at various points in the past, so let’s say there’s an element of self-satire.
ZeaLitY: Ha, right on. I’ve run across a couple other cartoon Sphinxes in the last couple of years and they all look pretty much the same (tiaras and wings are optional), which i guess doesn’t say a lot for my imagination but oh well. At least mine doesn’t stare blankly and have friggin’ green eyeshadow.
May 20, 2010 at 2:07 am
hilarious as usual winston
you are a genius, and by far the best social commentator that i pay attention to.
keep up the good work
May 20, 2010 at 2:10 am
MY PRIZE PETUNIAS!
May 20, 2010 at 7:10 am
man, this reminds me of the end of captain esther
May 20, 2010 at 9:09 am
I was bracing myself for human excrement-vision that never came.
May 20, 2010 at 11:10 am
Brilliant!
May 20, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Oh lord. ‘The shirt that displays your thoughts’? That is my hell.
In a quiet, crowded room i often can’t help imagining that everyone can hear my thoughts and then sure enough they turn to what i want to hide, before i try to drown it all out with some repetitive tune and end up sitting in class with my face all twisted up and my eyes all panicky.
I think you may have tapped into a common human phobia, Mr Rowntree…
May 21, 2010 at 12:42 am
This
is
your most WIN comic
EVER!!!
May 21, 2010 at 5:34 am
more goodness. so satisfying. and this would make a great cartoon.
May 21, 2010 at 9:32 am
This is often the case in my customer support job. Customers will whine and rage that they did not get an order confirmation email and after battling it out with them for 5 minutes you find out the email address they gave originally was wrong then they have to do an emotional 180 and you get a small bittersweet taste of their realisation of their idiocy and pointless antagonism. This shock to the system will only last for a few minutes for them, but for me? It keeps me going for the whole day. Fuck You customers of T***********r.
May 21, 2010 at 12:48 pm
too many words. lol.
May 21, 2010 at 3:26 pm
OMG this is the best comic you have ever done. It is so hilarious I can’t handle it. I think you have fully mastered the art of facial expressions by the way, it makes everything that much better. And I really want a t shirt that reads my thoughts. I’m pretty sure this is my fave it’s so clever it makes me sick. Ha.
Love you
May 21, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Anna: Aww, thanks. Love you too, I’ll see you at the show next week for a high five..
May 21, 2010 at 7:06 pm
Love how you referenced Captain Esther Goes to Heaven at the start there, very nice dude. Constantly impressed, though the scroll-over text is always nice, a bit of your perspective is cool.
Keep em coming dude, and new merchandise please! =P
May 21, 2010 at 8:06 pm
Hello,
I’ve discovered your website two weeks ago, and have been reading through your works from recent to past. I have to say this is one of the most excellent work I ever read online. You like to play around with tropes, and still you have some periodical strokes of genius, and I find your work full of imagination and details. I would definitely like to see “what you want to draw” in a longer strip, it is quite expressive indeed. Please keep up with your efforts.
As a member of an american-bullied minority yourself, I have no doubt you will forgive my french-broken English.
May 21, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Oh crap. I just realsied I am that smartass in this strip. Just tell me where the petunias are.
Oh and – Kiss. Yep. Definetly played in hell. Poor demons. Almost feel sorry for then.
May 21, 2010 at 11:05 pm
So very good. Thank you for publishing.
May 22, 2010 at 12:10 am
I saw the exclamation points as the eyes and fangs of a rock bat that is upside down.
>.>
Love these ones.
May 22, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Is the devil actually an inmate herself? I was about to ask why she didn’t quit if she hated the job, and the only reason I can think of is that it must be HER punishment.
It can’t be much fun being the Random Angry Guy either.
May 22, 2010 at 2:59 pm
We should all be driving electric cars if gas is polluting the world. We should be on a fast track to phase out all gas powered cars in 2 years. That should do it. Easy, right?! Problem solved. Why do I always do this? If I’ve never seen a problem before I always have an idea of how it should be fixed even if it’s been around for years. We all get these thoughts all the time but maybe it’s too much work to pay attention to them because since when do they bear fruit except for our own suffering… Waitaminute! In the movies these thoughts are always right! I must be right about this! Everyone else is stupid! I’m right!
May 23, 2010 at 6:41 am
shit-goggles+post buffet lapdance= coprophilia heaven?
I’m not sure if some of your more popular characters might perhaps be occasionally slightly overused, once in a while.
(Sorry, saw the hedging and ran with it)
May 23, 2010 at 6:44 am
Also, hyphens to indicate rhythm? Love.
Dr. Cox is now readable.
May 23, 2010 at 7:12 am
I just spent all day reading every comic you have posted, thank you, I am a big fan now, my hat’s off to a fellow artiste! I will be checking back often for more fun and games.
May 23, 2010 at 7:32 am
I want to see more funny things that go on inside hell! There’s a comedy goldmine there, just waiting to be tapped. WINSTON, YOU ARE THE MAN TO DO THIS. Please!
May 24, 2010 at 12:56 pm
I like it.
May 25, 2010 at 8:01 am
I love your Comics. Every single one is great. This one is no exception.
Greetings from Austria.
May 25, 2010 at 10:09 am
It looks like you took my suggestions about proportion on board. Good job. Your comic looks a lot better. Now all you need to work on is color. I don’t know of a good book for learning that, but studying the Pre-Raphaelites would definitely make your comic a little bit nicer.
I definitely think your comics are some of the best on the web, but I definitely can’t abide net-nannying in any form. Best of wishes. Sorry.
May 25, 2010 at 3:00 pm
I love your comics, greetings from South America!
May 25, 2010 at 6:32 pm
‘Salright, man. But only just cuz you also played EarthBound, ha ha. Seriously, though, if you’re ever in the UK, come visit me. You can stay with me & my small family.
May 28, 2010 at 3:19 am
Gotta love how the “can’t win” theme is first used on the demon chick. Whatever she says to the guy, he always has an answer ready so she can’t win. In a way, that’s her own hell.
And, really, that’s what makes this comic brilliant. People like that really are hell. No matter what you say to them, they just don’t listen, they’re adamant in the supreme belief that they’re right. Nobody can scratch them since other people’s fingernails don’t even exist to them.
So annoying. Best thing to do is ignore them and wish there’s a patch of petunias waiting for them down below.
May 28, 2010 at 4:52 pm
kudos for having walls of text now on character’s wearware
May 30, 2010 at 6:26 am
…I’m sorry, but I find it very hard to feel incredibly sympathetic to a professional torturer.
But, you know, that’s just me. You guys can schadenfreude it up if you like. After all, the guy was arrogant and sort of sexist, so he deserves to be beaten to tears, right? Right? The REAL victim here is the demon who has to put up with whining, right? Whining is so much more unconscionable than torturing, right?
Of course it is.
May 30, 2010 at 7:42 am
Like the famous Gipper speech at Bitburg, “They were victims too” said at the Nazi graveyard.
May 30, 2010 at 11:14 pm
…just noticed that the TShirt says ‘You stu*** sack of S***’ when it’s over her chest. I love he misses that one.
I just love it all.
May 31, 2010 at 11:47 am
Hasn’t everyone been this guy at some point?
May 31, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Excellent…
May 31, 2010 at 10:10 pm
I like the added touch of the triskellions on her earrings 😉
June 1, 2010 at 5:02 am
I’m waiting for your vision of facebook 😛
June 7, 2010 at 11:12 pm
I know I’m commenting a bit late, but could I just say I LOVE you for the Sartre reference in the second panel?
August 20, 2010 at 7:01 pm
Freaking awesome. It could be Buddhist Hell, Reform Catholicism Hell; it could be something BP runs to keep people in line, or say, introduce staff to their vision for an EMEA trading front for American (the continent) States. I do however think the hat on the big guy is over the top.
July 19, 2012 at 9:42 am
Heh. That guy is going to win.
Mostly on account of everything he is saying being technically accurate (as long as he sticks to his guns)…
Silly green devil woman is all “Wah! You can’t win because we say you can’t!” … and he is all like “Oh yeah? Watch me!” ….. So hell resorts to violence because it can’t win an argument. Sorta like the sphynx. Sorta like a lot of characters in this comic.
#1. Make idiot of yourself.
#2. Lose argument.
#3. Resort to violence.
The guy is going to get beaten up by the big bloke a lot. He will, however, get used to it as he originally noted. Probably rather quickly too. Easiest victory ever. Troll-faces all round.
October 11, 2012 at 8:03 pm
It’s actually an easy win. You just keep thinking “a guy is gonna appear behind me enraged”, so you win because you guessed it right. And if they don’t want you to win they’ll have to prevent him from appearing. XD