The first two panels are gold. Came out of nowhere and whacked me with the funny.
LIKE A NINJA!

Damn...now I want my daughter to be a ninja too. Either that or marry a rich guy with a yacht.

A great BI and the bonus of it being early too.

Please add 'do' to the second panel though. "Do ninjas 'do' chores?"

Damnit, I wished my mother had been badmouthing doctors when I was young...

Now you have to do a strip with the exclaimation "Like a VIKING!"

In order to meet my nitpicking quota for the day, I feel obligated to point out that one of the speech bubbles in panel 2 should probably say "Do ninjas do chores?".

Speaking of picking nits, the plural of ninja is actually ninja. "Pluralling" doesn't change a word in Japanese :)

^Rob: And if we were speaking Japanese, that would mean something.

This was an awesome comic from start to finish. Bravo, sir.

Great comic! You are forgiven for not delivering me your FREE comics yesterday, or, you know, whatever it is that your guilt was about. :-)

I join one of the comments above and beg you to exploit this theme more. Not only Vikings, but also Ninjas vs. Pirates!

I believe today I shall end every sentence with "like a NINJA!"

My wife should be hitting me with her figurative rolling-pin by dinner.

Seems like there's a Dr McNinja crossover somewhere in here.

Aww, I feel bad that you feel guilty. Hey, did you know the copyright still says 2011?

There. With any luck, I've replaced your guilt with rage.

Perhaps it's because I have an 8 year old son for whom this rings so very true, but you made me laugh a lot with this one.

Artfully done - I'm still chuckling.

When I was a kid, I wanted nothing more than to be a ninja. I thought: Every kid says they're going to be something like this, but I'm actually going to do it. I'm going to train and become a ninja.

I never even took karate. Now I'm a business reporter. And I'm a little overweight. Nothing ninja in any of that.

"My wife should be hitting me with her figurative rolling-pin by dinner." (Like the ninja!)

Rick's got long hair again! Excellent comic - keep up the good work!

@Invisible Editor

Ninja: "...a covert agent or mercenary of feudal Japan..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja

The more you know...

Awesome comic, loved the line about "eliminating" weeds. And the suggestion to badmouth the doctor. hehe
I also join that above comment about furthering this thing. Maybe when the kid gets a bit older, he'll start wearing turtlenecks himself, and go travelling around reading books with short sentences.

Or maybe after the ninja stuff, he'll get into the usual Space! versions of things.

No guilt about yesterday, please. It was in the service of an important cause.

I hope he decides he wants to be a pirate next. :>

-Cougar :{)

This one is great. And it's actually educational, too (I find your best comics are).

"…but we all know kids will pick other heroes to emulate as well."

Hmm, so parents are heroes. You made that so subtle… like the ninja.

Epic comic today, Shihan-san Scott.

When I took care of the weeds in the garden, I did it LIKE A GAIJIN!

@Rob

In English, the plural of ninja can be either unchanged as ninja, reflecting the Japanese language's lack of grammatical number, or the regular English plural ninjas. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja - Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed.; American Heritage Dictionary, 4th ed.; Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1))

Random

Not that it's the point or anything, but I've never been able to tell. Is the androgynous Rick-like being (it's not Rick) on the left of these panels supposed to be male or female?

Yes, Ninjas are murderers, but they're "cool murderers". That was a pretty good statement there about how people decide who to admire.

Pro-Piracy one day. Pro-Ninja the next.

In honor of the brilliance of this comic, I am wearing a turtleneck today. Maybe it will hurt less....

My five year old daughter tries to hide in the house "like a ninja" and then "attack" me when I walk by.

Good times.

Scott, Scott, Scott, the FIRST rule of parenting is that, if you want to encourage your child to do anything, you have to absolutely forbid that they even think about it! Then, once, for example, being a ninja is off-limits, they will work their little behinds off trying to be the best ninja they can be.

@Thom lol, I missed that in my rush to devour the comic.

*sigh* I will never have the patience to be a ninja.

This comic is most excellent and incredibly useful. I may be only 28, but when I grow up, I wanna be a ninja!!!! Thank you Scott. You have shown me my true path in life... LIKE A NINJA!

Pure genius dripping from all four panels! This is my new favorite Basic Instructions (at least until I peruse the archives again or the next one is published).

"Now I'm a business reporter. And I'm a little overweight. Nothing ninja in any of that."

On the contrary. Being a business reporter gives you access to a target-rich environment, and being larger gives you more opportunities to conceal weapons...like the ninja. In fact, I'll bet you already are a ninja, and this is just your cover! But now that I've blown your cover, I know too much and have to be silenced...

Cool! I'm gonna be whacked by a ninja! This is the best day ever!

Unfortunately my kids found this video a while back and now the only think they do "like a ninja" is flip out

http://www.rathergood.com/ninja

love your work, keep em coming!

Scott:

Who is that guy that has the kid who wants to first be a ninja? It looks very much like Rick, but his hair is long. Is it Rick's brother/cousin?

PipeTobacco

I preferred "Ninjas do chores?"
It sounded much more natural and surprised.
Wait, whadya mean, "this isn't a democracy"?

This lady co-worker of Scott's doesn't show up often, but I find it amusing when people thing that it's Rick with long hair.

Great comic, I have shared it with everyone I know.

Ah, the invisible foam sword of bilingual grammar ... and if we were speaking Latin it'd be ninjae.