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I'll preface this by saying that I really like Three Panel Soul. But their most recent comic struck an odd chord with me. I thought it was kinda neat, but for some reason, "beating the devil at mancala" struck me as insufferably, boastfully lame. Don't ask me why, it just did. To illustrate, I came up with my own quirky version (unillustrated, because I haven't drawn since High School).

I once beat the Devil at a game of Nine Men's Morris. Fortunately for me, he didn't know that it was just a more convoluted game of Tic-Tac-Toe, and easily winnable if you know the trick of it. I won from him his sense of decency, which he was surprisingly loath to part with and which gave off a golden glow. Never really did much with it, but it did keep my room heated during winter.

"But the comic has him being mundane with the Devil's SOUL!" you say. To which I say, "Yes, but confusing devil with a non-western chess-equivalent does not a victory make." The standard horses are beating the devil/Death at chess, or perhaps a fiddling contest. There was something very "oooh, look at me!" about the whole age 16/mancala thing that rubbed me funny, and don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the litotes of the punchline. However, there was something about the whole setup that seemed to prematurely deflate the whole concept from the get-go. I wish I could better articulate this vague disgust and why it gnaws at me so, but I think I'll just have to recite the MST3K Mantra a few times and move on.


Enough, More Later.
- James