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Brick Joke / Webcomics

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Brick Jokes in webcomics.

  • 1/0: Junior mentions that it smelled like an old Arab woman here, leading to a small serial about whether or not he had been at CN Tower. Later, when he tries to smoke the grass...
  • 8-Bit Theater deserves a trophy for this kind of thing, containing several throwaway gags that get brought back years after they were first told.
    • In the 7th strip, Black Mage is reading a Nintendo Power magazine. 9 years and over 1,200 strips later, the joke is referenced in the biggest Anti-Climax of the series (CAREFUL, MASSIVE SPOILERS ON THIS). The title? "Longest Set Up In Webcomic History".
    • The Armor of Invincibility, something mentioned in the very first strip, is brought back up again in the very last strip, a grand total of 1,225 strips later, though this also has heavy flavours of Book Ends.
    • Thief got his class-up by stealing it from his future self. During the final confrontation with Sarda, the other Light Warriors had their powers taken away by Sarda, while Thief had his stolen by his past self.
  • In The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, a few pages in "There Is A Raptor In My Office," Doc makes a few mentions about how diabetics are always whining. Five years later, during "Futures Trading," Doc's clinic gets shut down because everyone thinks he's dead, and there's a whiny diabetic outside the clinic as it shuts down.
  • Batman: Wayne Family Adventures:
    • The first episode, "Moving In", has Damian claim to Duke during his tour of Wayne Manor that the dinosaur in the Batcave eats intruders, with Duke being disappointed when Bruce tells him later that Damian was just joking. In episode 20, "Daydreaming", Duke activates the cave's defenses when ninjas suddenly invade it, causing the dinosaur to come to life and eat the intruders... only for Duke to once again be disappointed when he realizes it was All Just a Dream.
    • Episode 11, "Not It", has Batman passing off his D-list villains to the rest of the Batfamily, of which includes Condiment King, much to their dismay as the condiments he uses tend to end up ruining their suits. After successfully passing off the job to Nightwing, Batman admits that he hates fighting Condiment King as much as the rest of them do. Jump ahead to episode 77, "Suit Up", which involves Batwoman having to pick up a new suit for Batman after the one he's wearing got ruined in a fight. Who was he fighting? Condiment King.
    • Episode 78, "Outlaws", begins with Red Hood bringing the Outlaws to the Batcave for the first time, with Artemis noting that the place is almost as dramatic as Jason is, leading him to protest that description of himself. At the end of the chapter, Jason asks if him and the Outlaws are ever leaving the mansion, leading Alfred to tell him to not be so dramatic, causing Jason to protest once again.
    • "Daydreaming" involves Duke falling asleep during one of Bruce's lectures, with this one specifically being the explanation of Emergency Plan M-02, the plan for an event in which Gotham is overrun by an army of Man-Bats. While this may initially seem like just a Mythology Gag to the times in which this has actually happened in other Batman media, it becomes a case of this trope when the "Hold the Line" two-parter roles around, which is based around an army of Man-Bats invading Gotham.
  • In The Bedfellows strip "Next Door", Sheen wakes Fatigue up to "take care of a problem," which Fatigue takes to mean his Raging Stiffie. Sheen meant the noise next door, but he tells Fatigue to keep going. In the next scene, Fatigue knocks on the door with a hand covered in a dubious, white substance.
  • In this Brawl in the Family comic, Daisy catches Wiggler and Lakitu trying to get special privileges from their brethren in Mario Kart 7. Three comics later...
  • Bronze Skin Inc.: Early in Chapter 7, the Marvires are sent flying by the Saci and disappear into A Twinkle in the Sky, only falling back down near the end.
  • Bug Martini has a little one when the author decides to take a break from fart jokes and, some strips later, this happens.
  • In The Chosen Four, during the fight with the Trillionage Sprout, the senile boss calls Ness "Billy". Later it is shown that Trillionage Sprout was actually mistaking Ness for Shroom, whom he had a close relationship with.
  • Cyanide and Happiness plays this very straight with their comics about Waldo. For those who don't want to experience the comic front to back, they introduce him here, he returns about a week later, and then again two and a half years later.
  • In Darths & Droids, Chancellor Valorum mentions wanting to turn people into cyborgs under his command. In Episode III, General Grievous reveals himself to be Valorum with a similar line.
  • Demonseed Redux:
    • When Dee starts feeling unwell her friends think she's pregnant. Later when she confirms it, turns out they've made a Side Bet between themselves.
    • Hal owns an old brickphone with bulging buttons, which gets mocked. Later Mama Baga comments that he has called her 6 times by accident.
  • DICE: The Cube That Changes Everything: When Jieun and Dongtae meet for the first time, she rescues him by giving just one Dice, and he promises to repay her. Near the finale when it's not even needed, he gives her one Dice just to be polite.
  • In this Dinosaur Comics strip, T-Rex forgets his wallet on the moon. 323 strips later, we get the Alt Text ("hey, my wallet's here") to this strip.
  • Dragon Ball Multiverse: Dabura reappears many chapters after last being seen, having been healed by Majin Buu offscreen after offering him some candy, the same candy Majin Buu had conjured during the lunch break too.
  • The Dragon Doctors had a gag in Chapter 14 — Sarin's suggestion to Aki that she might want to turn into a man again to conceive a child with Goro, one which is too embarrassing to contemplate — return in Chapter 20, but was too adorable for words, instead.
  • In chapter 7 of Drowtales, Chrys'tel was seen wearing a set of black and red clothing, and after she's captured, Ariel takes them in chapter 8 in order to impersonate Chrys'tel, though she never wound up using them. Then in Chapter 30, 22 chapters later, they're worn by Diva'ratrika, her grandmother, who, due to plot-important reasons, now looks the same age, which later results in a hilarious payoff.
  • In Dumb_RWBY, one strip after Volume 3 has Ruby declare to the remains of Team JNPR that Pyrrha would always be with them, especially in their lungs. In one strip set in Volume 7 has Penny ask where Pyrrha was. Ruby responds by coughing out Pyrrha's ashes.
  • In El Goonish Shive, Dan Shive will often include links to prior strips whose subject matter was referenced underneath the new chapters. As can be expected, several of these point out Brick Jokes, while some of them are Bricks of the Invoked variety.
    • In a Night Out comic strip written in 2003, Nanase claims that "Hair doesn't just spontaneously change color." Later, in a Sister II strip written in 2009, Nanase eats her words while lying in a hospital bed with spontaneously changed hair color.
    • In a strip from 2002, Greg yells, "Where the hell did that sword come from?" This question isn't answered until eight years later in this strip from 2010.
    • Elliot first hides inside his Coat of Solitude in 2002. It appears again nearly nine years later.
  • In Everyday Heroes, Scary Mary gives a seemingly senseless rant which turned out to be an accurate prediction of the future. Although the events took place only a few weeks later in comic time, in real time they were published over four years later.
  • Exterminatus Now does this during its first storyline. The bad guys expect the inquisition to barge in with a popular Monty Python's Flying Circus quote. They briefly lampshade it, then leave it hanging for four years.
  • On page ten of Final Fantasy VII: The Sevening, Cloud, upon learning that GP has changed to Gil, dumps all the accumulated GP he's gained from six generations of Final Fantasy titles. Over a year and exactly 200 pages later, the party reaches the Gold Saucer, and he asks Aries why she let him toss his GP, before she delivers the punchline to another Brick Joke, regarding him paying for the flower she gave him.
  • Girl Genius:
    • In the second issue, Agatha encounters a brain-damaged spark experimented on by Baron Wulfenbach, who appears terrified that the baron might discover his bears. Over a decade later, it turns out that he wasn't talking about his toy bears.
    • A long time after Agatha seems convinced that her battle merry-go-round is too dangerous to construct, Bang is diagnosed by Doctor Sun with a concussion for explaining that her injuries were sustained while destroying a merry-go-round.
      Agatha: It could be a really evil town...
    • In the Cinderella special, the "evil stepmother" comments that Agatha could win the kingdom with a dead rat and a houseplant. At the end, she bribes the king, a cat, with a dead rat and potted catnip.
      Evil stepmother: Hy knew hit!
    • The Red Heterodyne sandwich in "Maxim Buys a Hat" apparently refers to the time that ancestor invaded the Unseen Empire, and took two years getting back to the surface because he had developed "a taste for bat sandvitches"
    • Gil throws Othar out of an airship, and when Agatha gets mad, he assures her that once she gets to know Othar, she'll do the same. An hour later, she does, and mentions, "I owe Gil an apology." About ten chapters later, she gives it to him.
      Agatha: I got so mad at you, and then, within the hour, I threw him out an airship too!
      Gil: And you felt bad for throwing—
      Agatha: I felt bad for yelling at you!
    • "What hyu need is a big hat vit hyu name on it." And, sure enough...
    • "But why are there mechanical squid in the cistern?" Well, two years and two volumes earlier...
    • Steam-powered feet? Steam-powered feet!
    • Remember the guard slime? Someone isn't so savvy.
    • Another that is took over a decade of real time to come to fruition. During her time in the circus, Agatha attracts the attention of two Geisterdamen on patrol, who leave her alone after concluding that she's just an actress. Eleven years later, she runs into the exact same pair in Paris and gets recognized.
    • In the kitchen of Saint Szpac, Tybalt loses his armor to the Beast, and Martellus promises to make him a new suit that is "red with bells and tassels". A little while later, Tybalt shows up to Grandma's masquerade ball wearing new armor... which is, indeed, red with bells and tassels.
    • Many years of real time ago, and two and a half years in-universe, Tarvek revealed that he'd built a failsafe into his Avenka clank; at "Avenka- Freeze!" the clank would stop moving (but still be able to speak). Among other things, this allowed him to replace the "Avenka" head with one containing a copy of the Other. In a strip from the "Tarvek is Justifiably Proud" segment, the clank-Other is attacking... and "Avenka- Freeze!" still works.
  • Early in Go Get a Roomie!, Aggie tells Lillian about Roomie's "weakspot" ("Her back is like a huge cli-" "Clicking button that turns her on and off?" "One more than the other, but you get the idea!"). Later, when Roomie is singing and wakes Lillian up, Lillan touches her back, saying "Off". Still later, Woc tries to talk to Roomie while giving her a back massage.
  • In Granblue Fantasy, this is a common theme among several comic strips of the Grand Blues series. A joke will sometimes get continuations in future strips, along with a written reference to the strip number of the comic where the joke was previously mentioned or used. A few examples are as follows:
    • Narmaya getting knocked over by the "sister" power of Tien, and other sister characters revive her in a later comic strip.
    • Danua, Anna, and Io take turns in certain comic strips telling horror stories to Lyria and Ferry.
  • In Grrl Power, Sydney reacts to a BOOM in a way that Harem doesn't understand at all. The penny finally drops for her 271 pages later (2 years and 7 months of real time) when a similar maneuver is performed, and Sydney immediately mocks her for how long it took.
  • Gunnerkrigg Court: Kat tries to ask Saslamel's interpreter if they can do anything about Annie being shifted, but they say, "Sorry, this really is not our department. You need temporal affairs." Several chapters later, Annie and Kat meet the Norns; Annie asks them if they can do anything about her situation, only to get the response: "Sorry, we only deal with temporal affairs."
    The Rant: Bureaucrats!
  • Homestuck:
  • Early in Kevin & Kell, we get a visual representation of a "wandering thread" as a squiggly line that emerges from a computer and leaves the house. Months later, it comes back for Thanksgiving.
  • League of Super Redundant Heroes does this with rectal itching (really...). First time round is in Laser Pony's origin story, with the payoff a couple of frames later... months later, Maroon Jackdaw appears to have the same issue...
  • Leftover Soup:
  • In Lotta Svärd: Women of War, Helle once tells a scary story in which a Russian spy turns out to have worn a mask and actually looks like a troll beneath it. Several chapters later, Taimi gets to meet a Russian captive and muses that he looks nothing like Helle's description.
  • These two strips of the Chess based web comic series maniccomics.
  • Manly Guys Doing Manly Things: "When Spartans play Gay Chicken, they play for keeps." So sayeth Commander Badass. There's even a conclusion to the game. Leondias concedes defeat to Kratos so that Leondias can return to his wife and son, but it's a Pyrrhic Victory, as Kratos is reminded that he no longer has a family.
  • Ménage à 3: In an early strip, Gary imagines DiDi tied up with a video game controller. 585 strips later... (Borderline NSFW)
  • My Impossible Soulmate: Chiaki's tour of the Grand Arcane Library starts with Verity pointing out the bathroom closest to Room P-1. Later on, Keegan enthusiastically mentions said bathroom when his tour group reunites with Chiaki's.
  • Nedroid:
    • The Alt Text in the last page of the Robotginald story arc references Reginald's supposedly full name.
    • In one strip from 2009, Reginald remarks that to Harrison that Beartato once ate a Frisbee. In this comic from 2014, Harrison, much to Reginal'd protest, throws a Frisbee at Beartato, who eats it.
  • In this episode of The Order of the Stick, Elan saves the day with a magic item abandoned as 'useless' 224 strips earlier.
    • Also, a Cleric realizes his mistake far too late. A blink and you'll miss it gag.
    Belkar: How did you ever get so many Potions of Heroism?
    V: Do not ask.
    • Waited 837 strips, to drop this one.
    • In strip 331, Roy, attempting to phrase his question as exactly as possible so the Oracle can't screw him over, asks whether Xykon will be at Girard's Gate or Kraagor's Gate first, forgetting that there's a third gate. Strip 899, in which Xykon, having conquered the Azure Empire, tortured the Sapphire Guard, searched for his phylactery, and done a few other errands, finally arrives at Girard's Gate, is called "Prophecy Fulfilled".
    • In strip 966 Elan and Belkar spoke of a last merchant who only sell basic potions waiting in a room before the final battle, cue strip 1201...
    • Possibly setting a new record for longest real-world time for a brick joke, a character used in a single-panel gag in strip 32 returns 1206 strips and 17 years later in strip 1238.
    • Strip 784 (2011) introduces an allosaurus that is later tamed and in strip 926 (2013) polymorphed into a tiny lizard. The tiny lizard stays with the Order for 11 real life years until returning aggressively in strip 1298 (2024).
  • Ozy and Millie:
    • Ozy and Millie get into a friendly Volleying Insults competition with haiku, which they dub "Haiku Slam." A year later, they do the same thing with Iambic Pentameter. Millie is losing and tries to turn the tide with a haiku slam.
      Ozy: "That was last year"
    • In a smaller example, Millie has a Dream Sequence in which her homework comes to life. It mocks the fact that she put down Budapest as the Capital of Finland. When she wakes up, her mom informs her that Budapest is not the capital of Finland.
  • In the installment of Penny Arcade that introduced The Merch, the keen insight he gives is "I fucked your dad!". Guess what he says to Santa Claus at the end of the Christmas arc featuring him.
  • Precocious:
  • In the PVP strip for January 24th 2000, Brett "predicts" that Francis will lose his virginity on May 24th 2008. In the strips for May 23rd and 26th 2008...
  • Questionable Content does a quick and somewhat backwards one here. An initially pointless anecdote about disgusting smoothies is made, and the comic veers off in another direction. Just when you think it's over, someone orders a smoothie.
  • qxlkbh:
    • 16: the brick joke mentions this trope by name in the title and plays with it too: Andrew throws a boomerang. A cueball lampshades that the boomerang might come back in 500 strips... and then the boomerang hits them. The title text implies that the cueball will return within 500 strips, though.
    • 40: phone - part 7 claims that the somewhat anticlimactic ending of the phone plotline will be explained in 15 strips. Exactly 15 strips later, La Croix explains that the authors couldn't write a good ending.
  • Scandinavia and the World Three years and over 200 comics later, Norway brings up the "marriage" that happened in the very first comic.
  • Schlock Mercenary has a good one: Schlock complains of not getting to use his line about 'committing suicide when [it] saw him coming.' Lo, one incident with Creomar insurrectionists and a plasma grenade later... Not the first or last one; in fact, Howard Tayler seems to love this setup, based on how often he uses it.
  • Sequential Art:
  • Near the beginning of Shadowgirls, a trio of Jerk Jocks attempt to rape Becka, and are stopped only by the timely awakening of her Shadowchild powers. Fast-forward to the epilogue, and it appears that Becka's mom wasn't quite finished with them...
  • Shortpacked!:
  • Sluggy Freelance:
    • June 2 and August 17, 2001 (the ship in the second strip is the crotch of the megarobot GOFOTRON)
    • In the World of Warcraft parody, Riff is annoyed that a certain drop only happens when you kill female Green Slimeblobs, and he's having trouble distinguishing between the male and female ones. After Zoe is talked into playing, she gets annoyed that every female in the game is a Stripperiffic hottie, even the races whose males are grotesque. Including, apparently, the Green Slimeblobs.
    Riff: "In retrospect, why the hell didn't I notice that sooner?"
  • Something*Positive:
  • Stand Still, Stay Silent has the outcome of two different set-ups on the same page:
    • On page 187, some poor guy who's labelling packing crates is hit on the head by a mirror flung by Emil, and consequently attaches the wrong label to the wrong crates. On page 280 we discover the consequences when the crates are finally opened.
    • On page 95, the supposedly only useful item that Tuuri packed, her pot, turned out to have a huge hole in it. On page 280, when Mikkel is attempting to cook breakfast the food falls straight through the bottom, revealing a very shoddy patching job. He finds out about the previous entry while fetching for something else to cook.
  • In this Super Effective strip, the old man who teaches you how to catch Pokemon falls asleep. 5 strips later, he wakes up and finishes what he was saying.
  • Times Like This did three epic Brick Jokes that took years to complete.
    • In the 2007 strip "Five-Year Discount", Cassie time-travels five years into the future and buys a cocktail dress at a clearance center. In October 2012, a sequel to the strip, "Five Year Discount Revisited", appeared, where Cassie ran into one of her friends at the same discount center.
    • In the 2009 strip "We Were Warned... That Some Folks Would Panic", Cassie time-travels to 2013 to prove that the world didn't end. In the first strip of 2013 ("Just Checking!"), she walks through a portal to the exact same place the "We Were Warned..." took place and said she told the reader nothing would happen.
    • In Part 16 of the storyline "Back To The Garden" (September 10, 2009), Cassie, Matt, and Bethany find their orange van destroyed in a mudslide that happened during Woodstock. Five years later, in Part 13 of the storyline "Back To The New Garden" (September 22, 2014, just over five years later), Cassie and Phillip walk through the mess after Woodstock when Phillip points out an orange van that ended up in a mudslide.
    • In a shorter Brick Joke, the September 2012 strip "On The Down Low" shows Agent Scott handing Phillip an envelope with a message we don't see at all. In a November 2012 strip, we find out the message is Cassie's ring size, which Scott gave to Phillip just before he went to buy Cassie's engagement ring. However, there could be a longer Brick Joke in the making (it depends if it's still around at the time): The 2012 strip "Loopy" features Future!Cassie pranking Cassie by shooting her with a holographic bullet, saying that she's been waiting 40 years to do it.
  • unOrdinary: Nearly 100 chapters and two years after Isen eagerly tried to convince Blyke that sleeping with socks on is better, John sees that Isen sleeps with socks and is so unsettled that anyone would do so that it temporarily halts his argument with Arlo.
  • Unsounded: The giant, tentacular, albeit harmless Summon Magic pymaric that the Inept Mage Bett tries to use against Duane is revealed, four chapters later, to have been a toy sold on clearance from a themed bordello.
  • In a VG Cats strip focusing on tabletop RPG, Leo ties a dead rat to a stick and dubs it a "rat-flail", which annoys Dungeon Master Aeris enough to tell him that the dead rat gave him plague and he died. The rat-flail returns in a Bleach parody some time later. Aeris-as-Byakuya is not amused.
  • In Wapsi Square, Brandi is victim of one due to the "Groundhog Day" Loop.
  • Waterworks: The worker who spins on his head like a Hitmontop, and re-appears later.
  • xkcd does this frequently.
    • A Tetris themed one. The first happened in comic 724. The next occurred in 888.
    • Here's one involving Bobby Tables: The first mention is in comic 327. The next (apart from a quick cameo) is in the alt text of comic 884. Comic 1253 makes an oblique reference to the running joke, along with a host of other Shout-Out's.
    • The alt-text of comic 188 is "And watch out for that guy from comic #53."
    • Comic 152 features a guy wishing for a human-sized hamster ball. Fast forward more than ten years and 2100 strips later, he returns to gloat about how everyone laughed at him, but then the COVID-19 outbreak happened.
    • The alt-text of comic 576 calls back to comic 325.
  • The Whiteboard features several bricks that take a long time to come back.

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