Concept and text by Mallory Ortberg. Images by Matt Lubchansky, who makes comics and occasionally leaves his apartment in New York. His work includes Please Listen to Me and New Amsterdam Mystery Company. He’s on Twitter, and doesn’t expect you to get his name right.
Tags: artwork, matt lubchansky, neighborhood watch, sinister warnings, street signs, sudden eyes, the surreal
#3 I always used to think was a comet. IF YOU DO CRIMES HERE, A COMET WILL STRIKE YOU
!!!
I always thought the neighborhood watch sign showing the guy crawling through the window was actually a picture of a guy in traction with his ski goggles still on from an unfortunate injury on the slopes!
(this is your brain on childhood…)
Mallory
have you inherited the spirit of Lovecraft (without the racism)?
Have you gone to Lovecrafts grave and spilled blood and wine upon the ground and asked for his weirdness to enter your mind? Have you repeated this ritual at less wellknown graves? Have you sacrificed a dozen years of your life for this?
It’s OK, you can tell us.
Mallory
have you inherited the spirit of Lovecraft (without the racism)?
Have you gone to Lovecrafts grave and spilled blood and wine upon the ground and asked for his weirdness to enter your mind? Have you repeated this ritual at less wellknown graves? Have you sacrificed a dozen years of your life for this?
It's OK, you can tell us.
has someone been listening to too much Night Vale? (all hail the glow cloud)
Aw come on now, the night vale style of delivery is just typical tumblr one-liner/weird twitter/old somethingawful stuff, those guys aren’t the only ones who do it. I know you’re not accusing her of ripping off WTNV directly, but still.
My god, are you saying Night Vale DIDN’T invent surreal humor? Surely you jest.
(Much like Sherlock invented the detective story genre.)
Har har har but that’s the third time today that I saw a comment saying “R U NIGHT VALE LOL” and it’s kind of like if every time a new rap song made it to the top 40 charts, reviews claimed it was directly inspired by the innovative work of Macklemore, the father of rap
I like to think all of those comments are made by these dudes:
has someone been listening to too much Night Vale? (all hail the glow cloud)
I love “if you touch each other you will fuse” a lot. What is the real life meaning of that sign?
I think it means “Warning: Intense game of Simon in progress”
“Warning: Playing Twister will result in permanent entanglement.”
I love "if you touch each other you will fuse" a lot. What is the real life meaning of that sign?
Har har har but that's the third time today that I saw a comment saying "R U NIGHT VALE LOL" and it's kind of like if every time a new rap song made it to the top 40 charts, reviews claimed it was directly inspired by the innovative work of Macklemore, the father of rap
First thing I thought of is that 80s episode of Twilight Zone called Shadow Man. Scared the everloving poop out of me when I was younger. Still scary when I think of it.
First thing I thought of is that 80s episode of Twilight Zone called Shadow Man. Scared the everloving poop out of me when I was younger. Still scary when I think of it.
Ever since Homestar Runner dressed as the neighborhood watch silhouette for Halloween, I’ve been unable to see that sign as anything else.
I don’t know why it’s Toast Rerun Day but I love it. I missed all of these the first time around. Thank you.
I know this is a three year old post, but OH MAN. Baltimore has old neighborhood watch signs that include a silhouette of the city:
But as a kid I always parsed the white blob (which is actually the silhouette of the Patapsco River) as a horrifying old misshapen vagrant shambling up a hill with malign intent. It was terrifying! Thank you, Mallory, for making me think about this childhood horror.
In all fairness, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of that river being a shambling old vagrant. That is no way for a respectable fluvial system to look.
It doesn’t even look like that! They were just really intent on terrifying young children!
Oh my GOD. There’s his foot, there’s his nose! Why did you make me seen that?
I wish I had the space in my office right now to literally roll on the floor, laughing. The Inner Harbor (and outer harbors) as a vagrant going up the hill! lololololol
Maybe the guy going up the hill is the neighborhood watch! Also I wish I had thought of this growing up.
Looking at it before reading your comment, I thought the white blob looked like a witch. Y’know, because of the hat-like shape on top? This community protected by…WITCHES would be much cooler tbh.
I have absolutely no idea how I missed this the first time it ran. Perfection as always, Mallory (and Matt!).
My brother and I were in the United States for a year or so. We had just moved to a new neighborhood and were taking a walk.
We got totally lost.
After walking around aimlessly for half an hour, we saw a neighborhood watch sign (the shadowmen/Boris Badenov kind) and somehow decided that would be our deliverance.
Our plan:
1. Act suspicious
2. Have the neighborhood watch get called on us
3. Ask for directions
Thankfully, it did not occur to us to do anything worse. The way we decided to be suspicious was slinking around like we were spies. We maybe ducked behind a tree once or twice. Mostly we just bent our knees a little more with each step. No one was called. The plan did not work.
Eventually, we ran into a mail carrier and skipped to step 3.
This is adorable.
This story has actually only gotten cuter in the hour since I first read it.
Dang, that’s a really elegant compliment!
I have always been perplexed by signs exhorting me to “Caution Children”. I mean, what did they do to deserve being cautioned? and isn’t that their parents’/guardians’ job?
When that sign even has a graphic it looks like a stick kidlet running away from some stranger (just off-sign) yelling at them about something.
One of my best friends once told me she sees the “SLOW: CHILDREN” signs as indicating the presence of slow motion play, along the lines of “caaaaaaatch thiiiisssss baaaaalllllllllllll.” I laugh every time I see one now.
We have a street artist in Toronto “defacing” ours:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/05/29/neighbour…
(sorry, I don’t know how to post links!)
I have always been sad that I don’t live in a neighbourhood with Neighbourhood Watch signs for Andrew Lamb to do his thing.
We had a Slow Children at Play sign that didn’t have any image or hierarchy for the words. I took it as an insult for years.
There is one in front of my house. Christmas Card opportunity?
This very excellent sign is in a swanky neighborhood adjacent to mine. I am guessing it was put up by a homeowner, rather than by the city… CAUTION: VERY FAT CATS!