Beavis and Butt-head issue 10



Beavis and Butt-head #10 was the October 1994 issue of the Beavis and Butt-head comic. All strips and features were drawn by Rick Parker (art and lettering) and written by Sam Johnson & Chris Marcil, with colours by Rob Camacho; Glenn Eichler was consultant. Due to the variances of the comics industry, the December date on the book translated to a street date around Halloween.

Pranked
Beavis and Butt-head realise it's Halloween when some trick-or-treaters come round; they steal and eat the candy, and decide they need to get into costume. After their first costumes suck, they improvise with random garbage and are almost eaten by feral animals ("I guess it'd be like if we saw a monster made of nachos"), and finally Butt-head hits on an idea: they swap T-shirts and go as themselves! They run into Todd, Earl and the gang, who've been smashing up mailboxes (including the Morgendorffers) and are hiding from the cops. Todd orders the duo to distract the police "or we'll kick your ass" so he and the gang can go around vandalising stuff. ("TODD RULES!" declares Beavis) The distraction the lads come up with is dissing the cops, getting themselves beaten up while calling for Todd (who's long gone). Halloween's going badly for them, but at least they've got cool costumes!

House of Suck!
Beavis and Butt-head wander over to the Christian Businessmen's Association's Annual Haunted House for Charity, which is raising money for "our juvenile delinquent re-education center" and appearing on local TV. The duo see lead businessman Clark Cobb in costume and mistake him for Dracula, and are disappointed when Dracula tells them to queue and pay two bucks ("DRACULA SUCKS!"). They decide to sneak in the back anyway, and hear canned screams and think this must be those vampire chicks Dracula has around his place ("He's smooth"). While Cobb berates the delinquents to perform well for the cameras, Beavis and Butt-head go around looking for the vampire chicks, managing to dish out severe pain to two men in ghost costumes - Beavis is pissed because that means they're not real ghosts - and then blunder in & mess up the news recording. This causes the juvenile delinquents to turn violent because they were promised to be on tape. The enraged Cobb sends his minions after the duo - "They stiffed us... AND THE LORD!!" - but in the process of searching, turn on the lights in a room where the kids have been playing the 'these are guts and eyeballs' game. Discovering they weren't real entrails but fruit, the kids declare they've been ripped off and start a second riot. Beavis and Butt-head get bored and disgusted by the presence of fruit and leave, as the house is torn apart in a violent riot.

Tales from the Dim


Getting increasingly pissed about the lack of candy, Beavis and Butt-head discover Stewart Stevenson in costume as the poor traveller who was aided by the Good Samaritan. Butt-head hears the story and realises this is a great idea, they'll set upon Stewart and rob him of candy, and he can stay in a ditch for that "Sam Martin guy". Sadly, Stewart already gave his haul to his mother so it can be dished out to him in small doses for the rest of the year. (Beavis would never let his mother touch his food, "who knows where her hands have been?")

They end up ringing the Morgendorffer's house, where Daria answers in elaborate skull make-up:


 * Daria: ...how terrifying... Beavis, Butt-head, and Stewart, together at my house...
 * Butt-head: I'm Beavis, uh... heh heh.
 * Beavis: I'm Butt-head. Trick or treat?
 * Stewart: Hi!
 * Daria: Hurry up and come in before the neighbors see you...


 * Butt-head: Parties are cool. You just, like, eat all the crap, get hyper, break everything, and leave...
 * Beavis: Yeah, it's just like at home... except you're at someone else's house...
 * Daria: Um, maybe you guys would like to play some games...
 * Butt-head: (stares at apple bobbing) What are those things in the water?
 * Daria: They're called "apples", Butt-Head.
 * Beavis: Um, I thought apples were those orange things...

As Butt-head explains those are bananas, Beavis tries his luck at Pin the Tail on the Donkey and pins it to his own nose.


 * Daria: Maybe you'd like to tell some scary stories.

Butt-head starts, telling about three guys in the woods when a disembodied voice thundered "WHO'S GOT MY GOLDEN ARM?", before admitting he's forgotten exactly what happened after that but he's pretty sure it was scary. Beavis disses this story and goes on with his own, which Butt-head realises is The Brady Bunch plot. He asks what's scary about that, and is told it's because the guys are living with three hot chicks "and you can't, like, do it with them, 'cuz they're, like, your sisters". Butt-Head, stunned, admits "oh yeah... that is scary."



Daria, fed up, goes for the big guns:


 * Daria: Okay... now it's my turn... on a Halloween night, not so long ago, two boys thought it would be cool to switch clothes and go out trick-or-treating disguised as each other... On that very night Death came for one of the boys... but when he found them, because they'd switched clothes he couldn't tell who was who... so Death took them both! And to this very day, they sit watching TV in Hell, where every show sucks and the only music they can listen to is opera...
 * Beavis:That's stupid. If Death tried to get me, I'd kick him in th' nads!
 * Butt-head: You dumbass... Death doesn't have any nads. They fell off when he died.

Realising this is true, Beavis screams to have his shirt back because he doesn't want to go to Hell until he's ready. ("Huh huh. Going down.") Daria silently holds up a sign telling us it's the END.

Features

 * Activity Page, where Beavis and Butt-head show you how to make Jack'O'Lanterns of them
 * "Reviews" of Nightwatch, Marvel's Spawn ripoff ("No way, Butt-head! That's not Spam! That's... uh... somebody else!"), and Silver Sable ("Beavis... I need to be alone with this comic book for a while!")
 * Butt-Mail, where they answer your fan mail

In fanfiction
An alternate universe version of this story is depicted in "God Save The Esteem" story "Highland Lassie."

Trivia

 * Cobb goes unnamed here.


 * Todd's battering of the Morgendorffer's mailbox is the only time Daria has any kind of contact with him, and it's doubtful Todd knew who the Morgendorffers were when he did it.


 * By this point in the comics, Daria is closer to "our heroine" from Daria than before: more ready with putdowns, interested in the macabre, and willing to take passive-aggressive action. (In her earliest issues, she was a passive spouter of facts) Johnson and Marcil would later write a number of Daria episodes.


 * Daria never interacted with Stewart in the show. This issue is their first meeting, and shows that Daria doesn't think much of him at all.


 * Daria hosting a Halloween party - and having people turning up for it - is something wildly at odds with her later (and B&B-era) characterisation, though she doesn't seem to be that thrilled to be having it. Post-Daria, we can assume this was a party Quinn was having and Daria just got stuck with it.


 * The use of a deliberately nasty story is a tactic Daria returns to in "Cafe Disaffecto" and "The Teachings of Don Jake".