A nervous bar patron points out a glowing jack-o-lantern–headed figure sipping a pumpkin spice martini. Buffy, a pink-haired dancer in a bikini top, holds a coffee cup while explaining the jack-o-lantern only shows up in October and disappears by Black Friday. At the bar, Buffy compares the pumpkin to mall Santas. The jack-o-lantern glares while the patron looks uneasy. Promotional comic panel titled “Aftercare & Advertising” with three neon pink icons on a black background: a globe with a cursor, a Bluesky butterfly, and a Patreon P shape. Below each icon are links: clubpinktaco.com, profile/zombieroomie.com, and patreon.com/zombieroomie. At the bottom, small text reads: “You don’t need the bonus panel unless you’re after nudity. In that case, you definitely need the bonus panel.”

Panel 1: A nervous bar patron points toward a glowing jack-o-lantern–headed figure sipping a pumpkin spice martini. Panel 2: Buffy, a pink-haired dancer in a bikini top, holds a coffee cup while explaining the jack-o-lantern only shows up in October and disappears by Black Friday. Panel 3: At the bar, Buffy compares the pumpkin to mall Santas. The jack-o-lantern glares while the patron looks uneasy.

Transcript

Panel 1
Danny: Look, I get this might not be the most progressive thing to ask, but...
Danny cont'd: ...Why is there a pumpkin sitting at the bar?

Panel 2
Buffy: We're just waiting him out. He's only here for October, gone by November. Disappears when the Christmas lights go up--
Buffy cont'd: -- Hell, he's gone by Black Friday.

Panel 3
Danny: You can't just let that thing sit here!
Buffy: Relax. Seasonal parasites. They're like mall Santas, but they smell like pie--
Buffy cont'd: --Instead of nicotine and the kid-pee marinade you get from twelve hours of "Ho ho ho, hop up here."

Limited Time Only
Posted on October 1, 2025 by Club Pink Taco

Bonus panel for the NSFW tiers on my Patreon. Bonus panels are NSFW, but not needed to get the joke/etc. in the more SFW version.

This wasn't the strip I had planned for the spot in the mini arc... I realized far too late in the production schedule that I didn't have a strip with the pumpkin dude in the public panels until the last strip in the arc. So I had to pivot and include one and this is what I wrote.

It's also not a setup>punchline type joke... but more of a silly conversation that hopefully you find funny. I did, that's why I drew it.

I'm including Danny and Edgar from the legacy ZR timeline as regular patrons. So putting Danny here is a way of using them. They were going to be brought into the rebooted ZR as regulars at the comic/gaming shop George is a co-manager of... I mean they still can be when I get back to it, but they're going to show up here. I'll eventually give them a character page entry and tag 'em. But not yet.