Carl is Dead -- Long Live Carl!

Congratulations to Zen MasterMorgan Doninger for our soul-of-simplicity winner this week! Also to Rob Staeger whose similar idea was wonderfully phrased. For all their new-found fame, though, these honored wise ones must silently share the stage with another -- a dedicated, tireless and brilliant fellow, who shall remain nameless -- who had the right idea, but, alas, at the wrong time.

As always, suggestions are listed in the order they were received. Thanks for playing and keep those suggestions coming!

--Scott
Sunday 08/02/1998

Erik Hallberg

• Carl's car hitting the elephant's redwood-like leg, the elephant's face in the UR corner. The car's hood is accordioning, and Carl's head is breaking the windshield. Carl looks shocked and disappointed all at once, as does the elephant.

  Elephant (thought balloon): Hey, I had the right of w--

Nick Burns

• Close-up of the back of Carl's head. Through the car windshield, we see the front end of a pink tractor-trailer and a screaming driver.

  SFX: TOOONT!

  CARL: "I love Dumbo."

Tom Smith

• Elephant smashing car into little bitty bite-sized pieces. Voice from mangled inside of car: "Man, is he strong!"

Bob Apthorpe

• As they say, "Nature abhors a vacuum". The elephant simply must inhale Carl's car, complete with telltale "python digesting a pig" lump in the pachyderm's trunk.

Rob Staeger

• The elephant stomps on Carl's car with a mighty foot.

Mark Rosenfelder

• Carl (still driving, but looking backwards): "Whoa! Was that elephant in color??"
• Elephant (now in Carl's car): "As your elephant, I advise you to _floor it_!"

Alexx Kay

• In deference to last week's suggestion that there really *is* an elephant in the road, how about a wide shot of the circus parade (just after the collision), with someone screaming "my elephant!"

LOU

• In a continuation of the last panel we see the back of the elephant, but it is now a pink truck,ramming right into Carl.

Dane Johnson

• Looking out the windshield, we see a train with "Circus" cars blocking the road. Carl says "Gaah!"
• We see the car from the side, perhaps with the tail end of the elephant at the left edge of the panel. The car "skids" on a pile of elephant droppings...

Kip

• A ringmaster from a circus sticking his head into the elephant tamer's tent and crying, "My God, Jimmy! Elvira, the giant pink elephant who hates late-model Buicks, has escaped again! What will we do?"

tim harrison

• carl puts a gun to his head and says, "REALLY strong!"

Morgan Doninger

• The bottom of the pink elephant's foot takes up the entire panel.

Doug Waldron

• "Oh no. I ran over an elephant that wasalso named Carl!"

  Georgians for Carl's Well-Being
  LONG LIVE CARL (our new motto)

Tony the Comics Guy

• Carl's car has crashed into the real elephant. His body is halfway in the car, halfway on the hood through the broken windshield." I never did like the circus..." Carl mutters, fading away.

Harry Lagoussis

• Carl says "Whew, that was a close one" after dodging the pink elephant, while a rhino is falling towards the car from above.

Michael Avolio

• Carl crashes into the elephant (there really IS an elephant; the--

  (word missing here for some reason, I'll guess "--drugs--" -- Scott)

  --just made it look pink).

Robynne Blume

• Carl decides to take extra-strength Tylenol for a small headache.

Douglass Barre

• Carl and the Pink Elephant are sitting on the curb, sharing the drugs. The elephant is beginning to tip over onto Carl. "Want a yellow one?" Carl is asking, ignorant of his impending two-dimensional (or, since comics are a two dimensional medium, one-dimensional?) fate.

Matt McDaniel

• I see circus midgets!