FunStreak Cartoon - Bone Appétit

Introduction

I've done a few comic ideas based on lists. I enjoy them and think they give an extra dimension to my work. It's also a great way to get ideas from other people, allowing you to add their examples without concerning them about artistic details.

Two of my Previous List Based Cartoons

A lot of my work is based on word-play and lists allow you to take a simple idea and really run with it. The only down-side is the limited opportunities you have for using them. You're limited to written formats like:-

• menus
• fake newpapers
• drawings of pieces of paper
• whiteboards

Bone Appétit

My latest example also features a list and was inspired by a joke I saw recently..

Dog says to puppy: Don't eat too much homework or you'll spoil your dinner.

(nb. Can't remember where I saw it, but it's similar to this Argyle Sweater from 12th Feb.)

I took the idea of a dog eating homework, although I don't think there's any real-world evidence of that actually happening. The etymology is often quite sketchy on these sorts of things, although the Oxford English Dictionary suggests late 20's.

That lame excuse is still very much in the common psyche, so on that basis, it's a good thing to build a joke around. I created a list of other things that dogs eat (but shouldn't) and built them into a menu.

Click image to view comic.

The punchline follows a different scheme, but I think that's OK because it's separate to the menu list. It could easily have been Hot Dog, German Shepherds Pie, or Chow Chow Mein. But you gotta draw the line somewhere.

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

Insert your own blowing double-entendre here.

Another in our series of exercises to draw cartoons based on common sayings (which is proving a very successful strategy).

My drawing still has a long way to go and it's never easy to think up a good joke, but this suggestion of doing some quickies based on sayings or phrases (which seem perfectly normal when taken by themselves) is working really well.

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.