Cartoon Challenge - Taking the Opposite

The Challenge

It was quite a simple exercise, but it turned out to be quite an undertaking.

These challenges normally come from discussions about cartoons that Shiela or I find and share with each other. The example that inspired this one comes from The Argyle Sweater with this great snake based idea.

In brief..
"Take a well known saying and make the opposite work for someone different."

I really struggled with this one, I could come up with ideas based on well-known sayings, but they didn't match the challenge criteria. In the end I had help from my girlfriend, who came up with the idea about using the phrase "You'll have someones eye out", with someone different being a Pirate.

I liked it, but wasn't sure how to make it work!

Developing the Idea

I spent some time considering an alternative based on rubber sucker tipped arrows, but the idea I came up with didn't meet the requirements. The best bet seemed to be find a way to make pirates work.

Thinking about other sharp pointy things, this would generally be a sword or cutlass. It got me thinking about kids being chastised for fighting with sticks and pieces of wood. Their parents saying "be careful, you'll have someones eye out with that stick"

What if that parent was a pirate with an eye patch, and what might he have said instead?

My Cartoon Challenge Submission

Link to original comic : http://funstreak.webcomic.ws/comics/16

Cartoon Challenge - Here's another

I found a load more well known sayings today, so I picked one out and drew it.

It's a bit of a play on words... (hopefully you can tell it's a candle)

I deliberately didn't show a lit candle because it might have confused with the saying about burning it at both ends. Other than that, pretty simple.

Cartoon Challenge - Single Frames

This is my version of the single frame cartoon with caption which is taken out of context to form the joke. For it to work it has to be a well know saying or item, and so I chose this euphemism on a whim.

Finding the saying as your starting point isn't so easy, I think I must have scanned through hundreds before I stumbled across this one. At first I was going to hint at it, but after drawing the cartoon I decided the line must appear otherwise people won't get it.

Sleeve tattoo

Rick and I were discussing the fact that some single-frame cartoons have a caption which could be perfectly innocent if taken out of context. But the image gives the line a completely new and funny meaning.

We wondered whether this might be a good way to come up with new ideas - listen out for a perfectly innocent line but hear it in a different way.

We decided to use this as a challenge.

Here's my first. I think I heard the line "can you do me a sleeve?" in a list of 'things to say to piss off your tattooist'. I believe a sleeve should develop over time. Asking for a complete one is a sad symptom of our instant-gratification world.

The picture obviously plays on the meaning of 'sleeve'. I could have stuck to the rules of the challenge and drawn something for the caption 'can you do me a sleeve' but I like this slightly developed version better.

The idea seems pretty obvious to me now. I'm sure it must have been done before but I didn't bother Googling to find out, I don't care.

Christmas Cartoon Challenge

It's only a couple of weeks to the big day, and I'm sure we can come up with a christmas gag each. And, it's been a month or so since I drew an Area 5.1 so I'm more than due an update.

But as per my halloween cartoon I need to come up with something with an original idea that fits the normal A5.1 humour pattern.

So what have we got to work with:-

• Elves (that's a possible, they look like small vulcans)
• Gifts (well it'd be rude not to)
• Stockings
• Christmas tree (I always like the idea of showing something identifiable from a distance and then on closer inspection it's something unexpected, so that's a possible)
•  Santa (seems a little too obvious, but maybe he has to be there even if a cameo)
• Typical celebration foods and drinks. (turkey or brussle sprouts anyone?)

I think we tend to think of christmas in terms of how our country celebrates, but it might be nice to consider how something like christmas might happen on another world.

OK so there's lots of possibles, are you with me on this Shiela?