The blog of Richard Thompson, caricaturist, creator of "Cul de Sac," and winner of the 2011 Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.

Showing posts with label more like how to screw up a perfectly OK joke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label more like how to screw up a perfectly OK joke. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

How to Screw Up a Perfectly Good Joke

I got an email today from an alert reader who sent a link to the Comics I Don't Understand website. This site, for those unfamiliar with it, is where you go when you've got a comic you don't understand, and you post it and a discussion follows in the comments section where other readers try to unravel the mystery of said strip.

The alert reader sent me here , where the above strip is considered. And I was shocked, shocked. Because that's not how the joke I thought I wrote went at all. I used an old rough for this, one I did about a year ago. It went like this-

Now that makes more sense, and it's subtle, and warm and funny, yet pointed and full of heartache. OK, it's not any of that stuff, but it does make a bit more sense and it doesn't sound as unsavory as the final version. There are "Kiss and Learn" signs in front of schools around here to mark where you can drop your child off, and they parody the "Kiss and Ride" signs at evey Metro station in DC. So when I redid the rough sketch last month I carefully did it wrong, and when I did the final I lettered it in wrong again, thereby blowing the joke entirely. Proving that I don't read what I write, though my wife did ask me about it, and I sat there and read it again and didn't see anything wrong with it.

But I am kinda proud to be on the Comics I Don't Understand site for the first time. And probably not the last, either