And lo, here the visual metaphor of the “graceless, fratboyish rocket-sled ride into drunken oblivion” merges with real-life disaster as poor Emp’s ill-fated quest to match alcohol consumption with Thugboy and Ninjette ends in projectile vomiting. Oops!

Panel 4: To be honest, I’m a little too fond of the dialogue technique of characters throwing previous quotations back in each other’s faces. The problem with this riff is that it would require better recall of other folks’ statements than I suspect that most people could easily muster. Quoting something you just heard is one matter, but having suspiciously good recollection of something said an hour or more earlier—not to mention many drinks earlier, as seen here—seems a bit of a stretch. At the very least, inaccurate quotation seems likely. Oh, well.

-Adam Warren