The advice in the last panel is weirdly circular and good. "Only marry people in the tautology club."

It's kinda sad that we have no little Scott Meyers to look forward to. Who will carry on the mantle of Basic Instructions? Who I say? Think about it, when they get to be around 6 or 7, you can have them draw the strip, ala Bill Keane. Now who's living large? You!

You got a bride by screaming "Hey!" and waving in a crowded jewelry store then cornering a woman against the locked emergency exit during the ensuing panic? Does this explain why you depict your wife as a perpetually irritated she-shrew who expresses only contempt and disgust with you? I had assumed it was "comedy dynamics," not documentary footage.

I dare you to write a joke where your wife smiles non-ironically at you and says something respectful and affectionate. If you want, to compensate, you can kick someone in the nuts just before or after that.

I think Cracked has introduced me to my new favorite webcomic.

the comment at the end is even better LOL

That is the most romantic story ever, Scott. It brought tears to my eyes... from laughter.

"Shut your wisdom hole" will be used unceasingly around my office today.

Wow! That's even more romantic than my proposal to MY wife! [over the phone while I was at work] "So... you wanna get married?"

The announcement letters are brilliant, I think I know what I want to send out now

Excellent... so now instead of a pie hole, I have a "wisdom aperture." I am sure my wife will buy that.

I wonder if Missy calls it the "pie hole", as in shut your ....?

"the wisdom hole" Brilliant!

"I dare you to write a joke where your wife smiles non-ironically at you and says something respectful and affectionate. If you want, to compensate, you can kick someone in the nuts just before or after that."

I laughed even harder at this than at the comic.

You should have 'Wisdom Hole' tattooed around your lips, just to remind people where it is.

Best marriage-related comic ever, Scott!

If anyone ever proposes to me, I would like it to be while offering me a vintage ring from a pawnshop, with Type O Negative playing on the stereo ("Christian Woman," "Be My Druidess," or "Cinnamon Girl" would be preferred for the romantic mood-setting) while on a road trip to Vegas. Hopefully, he'll look me in the eye and go, "So, my parents would hate it if I married you." I shall respond, "My mother would hate it if I married you, too."
"Do you want to annoy them for the rest of our lives?"
"Hell yes, baby."
Then we'd get hitched in Vegas and keep the marriage a secret for two years before casually letting it slip at an uncomfortable moment. Like a funeral.

Excellent. This was a covering-my-mouth-trying-to-hold-in-the-laughter-so-my-boss-won't-realize-that-I'm-not-really-working comic.

And James... I dare *you* to write that comic with that joke. I'll leave Scott's comic to Scott, because, well... he's funny.

"... you depict your wife as a perpetually irritated she-shrew who expresses only contempt and disgust with you".

Bullseye.

That's brilliant.

Isn't "she-shrew" redundant? According to the dictionary, shrew already only refers to women: a scolding nagging bad-tempered woman.

So, "shut open that hole!" shouldn't be offensive to Mr Meyer. I wonder how Missy handles this.

Perhaps the she-shrew is there to differentiate her from the rare he-shrew which would be sort of like a male Bene Gesserit.

This was priceless! If this is true material, no wonder you constatnly come up with winners.

And I don't think Missy is portrayed as a shrew at all. What a weird viewpoint. A shrew wouldn't tolerate the antics. Missy joins in in her own way. Just because she points out the ridiculous doesn't make her a shrew or "disrespectful." Disrespectful would be the way Scott treats Rick.

Guys don't really change from little boys. They always desire to gross out the girls, and especially like to torment the one they "like." It brings no end of joy to their lives if they can keep getting a horrified response from that girl. Missy is perfect for this bizarre couple! Where would Scott be - real Scott or comic Scott - without her?

Missy is not a shrew! Scott loves her dearly, and you can tell because she's got an even wiser wisdom aperture than he does! He's just self-deprecating enough to portray his wife as the smartest person he knows - how does that make her a shrew? I think that makes HIM very wise indeed!

Just checking, but he's working out how to propose to her AFTER they already decided to write their own vows over a year ago? Or is it a different girl, since he did use the word 'fiance' last year?

I have a very similar way that I got engaged. In my case my wife and I went to dinner with a friend. He joked that we should get married since we already act like an old married couple. We both turned to each other and said "Okay". And that was that. We also ended up getting married in less than 7 minutes and threw a geeky video game party after words, so we're not the most typical couple.

@Victoria LOL you are dead on. I just realized that's exactly what I do with my girlfriend :P

I have to disagree with the view that Missy is a "she-shrew". Look at the comic where she opens a bag of chips in a theater for Scott while simultaneously coughing, or when she plays along with his Fats Domino v. Chubby Checker silliness. She's actually a really fun woman who puts up with a lot and seems to get some bemused pleasure out of her weird husband. Consider how supportive she was that one time she actually drew the comic herself. And much of the fun of Scott's little office stories come after the fact, as he relates them to his wife. Granted, her 'arms-crossed and angry' pose comes up a bit too often, but she never actually nags or berates Scott, and she usually lets him figure out where the line is, rather than trying to mark it herself and saying he's crossed it.

Still, a comic like "how to brag about your husband's webcomic" or some-such that shows her praising Scott to others would be a nice little change.

"Just checking, but he's working out how to propose to her AFTER they already decided to write their own vows over a year ago? Or is it a different girl, since he did use the word 'fiance' last year?"

I was kind of wondering that myself.

Still, funny stuff as usual.

Soooooo, "wisdom orifice" is right out, eh?

Wow. That is eerily reminiscent of my engagement. In my case though, after two years of shacking up, she finally just wore me down. I believe she has quoted me since, saying defeatedly, "Alllllright. When do you want to get married?"

Is it just me, or is James indulging in a "what about the menz!" moment?

I love that in the last panel Scott says "the Wisdom Hole" will catch on, and by reading the comments it clearly already has. :)

thank goodness for the new comic. I really needed my fix. Thankx!

"The Wisdom Hole," I like it!

I want a t-shirt or poster of the pose in the last frame with just the two middle dialogue bubbles... :)

On the "she-shrew" note, if you read the forward she wrote for his new book (which I'll shamelessly plug for him here, since it has some new material and I think it's worth buying) you'd see that she is in fact very loving and supportive of Scott. He needs a comic foil, though, and she fills that role beautifully.

I second (third? fourth? fifth?) those bemused at the idea that Missy is portrayed as a shrew of any kind. I think she's portrayed very positively - as good-humoured, smart, and witty as I'm sure she is in real life. (If I thought she was portrayed as a shrew i'd have stopped reading ages ago.)

With regard to proposals, my wife and I don't even agree on when we actually got engaged...

Kind of glad you ran out of room - wisdom hole is funnier because it's more pithy.

One of your most amusing!

The last panel is priceless. Scott breaks the forth wall better than anyone. Most recently we had the comic with the spelling errors and now this. Superb!

I agree with the poster above regarding the t-shirt: show the last panel with only the dialog in the two inner-most bubbles. Staple that to the site logo and you will have a seller.

It's time for more of The Moonmen Saga, or another trip to the getlemen's club !