Extra points if the first line is “There once was a man from Nantucket”
Herb and Jamaal, 11/3/04

Herb and Jamaal loves to do strips in which poetry by African-American writers accompanies some moment in the lives its characters. Which is all well and good, if potentially infringing certain copyrights. But usually there’s some at least vague connection between the poem and the action in the strip. Here, all I’m getting is: “Herb’s mother-in-law: she exists, and she lives in this house.” Which doesn’t have anything to do with the poem, as near as I can tell.
So, here’s my challenge to you, IRTCSYDHT readers: come up with some poem that fits this strip better than this one! I’ll take the best ones and Photoshop the new text in (or, more likely, ask Photoshop blackbelt Dalton to do it). We’ll show that we can beat Herb and Jamaal at its own copyright-infringing game.
(You know, now that I’m looking at it again, Herb’s mother-in-law is looking oddly … busty … in that last panel. You don’t think “walk a high wire” is some kind of wire bra reference, do you?)
dalton
November 5th, 2004 at 10:36 am
You’re going to be sorry one day that you keep asking for these. I call it “Ode to a Peeping Tom”.
http://www.daltonrooney.com/images/peep.gif
Bob
November 5th, 2004 at 2:56 pm
(1)No Bald Death — affront their Parlors –
(2)No Bold Sickness come
(3)To deface their Stately Treasures –
(4)Anguish — and the Tomb –
Anton
November 6th, 2004 at 12:00 pm
The motif on the coffee-cup could be an attempt at a Star Trek badge, in which case there does seem some tenuous link with the verse.
Sue
November 6th, 2004 at 8:47 pm
I’m pretty sure it is a Star Trek badge. I no longer see this strip on a regular basis, but I remember in the beginning, the grandma was responsible for naming one of her grandkids Uhuru.
Jim Treacher
November 7th, 2004 at 11:16 am
F*** the police
Comin’ straight from the underground
Young n**** got it bad
‘Cause I’m brown
–O’Shea Jackson
Ellison
January 22nd, 2005 at 5:35 pm
“Uhuru” is Swahili for “Freedom.” Enterprise’s comm officer, on the other hand, is named “Uhura.”
Zanzibar
February 27th, 2005 at 8:57 am
This just goes deeper and deeper, doesn’t it, Ellison? Are we going to bring in the blind engineer from Star Trek Next Generation now?