This article is about the Viz comic strip. For other uses, see The Things (disambiguation)

The Things (disambiguation)

The Things is a recurring comic strip in the British adult humour comic Viz. Other meanings of The Things include:* The Things * The Things * The Things, a Baltimore, Maryland rock band...

.

The Things are recurring characters in the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 adult humour magazine Viz

Viz (comic)

Viz is a popular British comic magazine which has been running since 1979.The comic's style parodies British comics of the post-war period, notably The Beano and The Dandy, but with incongruous language, crude toilet humour, black comedy, surreal humour and either sexual or violent storylines...

.

The Things are some kind of troll

Troll

A troll is a supernatural being in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. In origin, the term troll was a generally negative synonym for a jötunn , a being in Norse mythology...

-like creatures with long fur

Fur

Fur is a synonym for hair, used more in reference to non-human animals, usually mammals; particularly those with extensives body hair coverage. The term is sometimes used to refer to the body hair of an animal as a complete coat, also known as the "pelage". Fur is also used to refer to animal...

, fang

Canine tooth

In mammalian oral anatomy, the canine teeth, also called cuspids, dogteeth, fangs, or eye teeth, are relatively long, pointed teeth...

s and narrow tails with arrowhead

Arrowhead

An arrowhead is a tip, usually sharpened, added to an arrow to make it more deadly or to fulfill some special purpose. Historically arrowheads were made of stone and of organic materials; as human civilization progressed other materials were used...

 shaped tips. Despite being the whole point of the strips they appear in, they are always in a supporting role, with the main protagonists being a perfectly normal human

Human

Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...

 married couple.

The humour in the strip comes from one of the couple saying some sentence containing the word "things" to the other, which by itself would be perfectly ordinary, but the strip causes the reader to assign a new, more literal and physical meaning to the word "things."

Examples include:

• A woman says to a man: "Darling, there are some things I'd like to get off my chest." The strip shows the woman standing next to a wooden chest
  Chest (furniture)
  A chest is one of the oldest forms of furniture. It is typically a rectangular structure with four walls and a liftable lid, for storage. The interior space may be subdivided...
  
  , with two furry Things standing on it.
• A man says to a woman: "Let's face it, darling. Things just aren't working out between us." The strip shows the couple standing apart from each other, with two furry Things standing idly in the middle, near some exercise equipment they obviously have no intention of using.
• A man says to a woman: "I couldn't eat another thing." The strip shows the woman coming in offering dessert (a Thing covered with cream) and the man is sat at the dinner table with three plates each with the bones of Things on, obviously having been eaten as a meal.
• A woman says to another woman at a cocktail party: "Men! They're only after one thing." The strip shows a group of angry men running after a furry Thing, while another furry Thing stands idly by.
• Possibly the most contrived Things cartoon - much of Viz humour relies on deliberate contrivances, as a knowing parody
  Parody
  A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
  
   of the contrived, forced, teleological plots of many children's comics - consists of a man talking to a well whilst a couple of Things stand in his herb patch. His speech bubble reads 'Well, I've seen some Things in my thyme
  Thyme
  Thyme is a culinary and medicinal herb of the genus Thymus.-History:Ancient Egyptians used thyme for embalming. The ancient Greeks used it in their baths and burnt it as incense in their temples, believing it was a source of courage...
  
   (time
  Time
  Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
  
  .)'