Comments on: On Webcomics Creators as Animation Directors: Jon Rosenberg

By: T Campbell

T Campbell — Mon, 08 May 2006 21:35:23 +0000

Oh, *now* I see!

By: bup

bup — Mon, 08 May 2006 21:35:11 +0000

I agree with the first premise of the article – a lot of good comedy comes from restrictions, and the justaposition of characters in situations where they find themselves having to operate within those restrictions.

However, wackiness *can* provide real funny. Linking to one of Jon’s early weak strips doesn’t disprove that.

If your assertion were a pretty good rule of thumb, we should be able to use it as a predictor – we should be able to measure readers’ estimations of the comics as rule-based or anything-goes based, and see a correlation with how funny it’s perceived. I don’t see it.

Somebody said (can’t remember who, and I’m paraphrasing), comedy comes from normal people trying to behave normally in odd situations, or from odd people behaving oddly in normal situations. I think that’s closer to true, but still doesn’t get it all.

I think comedy can be found anywhere you can manage to disarm the audience so that their expectations are successfully confounded.

Finally, I think that doing anything *well* is harder – a good joke that’s not situationally based is as hard as one that is.

By: Gary Tyrrell

Gary Tyrrell — Sun, 07 May 2006 20:48:44 +0000

New “far-flung future” graphics links to be added shortly; I was unable to include them earlier, and we’re upgrading WordPress right now.

By: FlipConstantine

FlipConstantine — Sun, 07 May 2006 18:09:36 +0000

Re: the alternate universe analogs. If I guess correctly the tall blond guy is a doppleganger of Phillip, and the fish is, well, fish, so that leaves the chick. Who must be Jon? How Freudian…

By: T Campbell

T Campbell — Sun, 07 May 2006 12:26:23 +0000

I think the “far-flung future” link actually points to a comic of Diablo’s: http://www.goats.com/archive/020802.html. The universe’s future remains uncertain…

By: Alexis Christoforides

Alexis Christoforides — Fri, 05 May 2006 03:50:17 +0000

s/anything/nothing/

By: Alexis Christoforides

Alexis Christoforides — Fri, 05 May 2006 03:49:11 +0000

That was an incredible post on structured zaniness, and great reading material for beginning cartoonists. Thank you Gary! I really have anything to add, you pretty much nailed it.

(In one more of those weird coincidences, it was only a few hours ago that I was going through Wikipedia reading on most major Warner Bros. characters. I didn’t know know a real roadrunner existed, and now I get linked to it twice in a day?)

By: Al

Al — Thu, 04 May 2006 23:27:17 +0000

Nice work. This is a very in-depth look at comedy.

Newcomers should read this.

Maybe also oldcomers should read it. I think that both would benefit from this comedic foundation.

Wheee.