Funstreak Cartoon - Misheard Idioms (Malapropisms)

Introduction

I had an idea about basing a cartoon on idioms that people commonly get wrong. I built a list of them, but I couldn't think of an idea that would work. So I created a couple of sentences, not really knowing what else to do with them...

“I hate being treated like an escape goat, it puts me on tender hooks, and for most people it goes down like a damp squid. I decided to nip it in the butt and extract revenge on this person, and it turned out to be a blessing in the skies."

"You'd better tow the line" I told them, "or you'll have another thing coming". Exactly how I do this is a mute point right now, but it'll certainly be no holes barred”

It's too wordy to use in a cartoon, so I decided to change direction and just focus on one.

Choosing An Idiom

Escape goat appealed to me and triggered the most ideas, but before I started work, I did a quick google image search to see if anyone had already drawn my idea.

Some Other Ideas I Found

OK, so I wasn't going to be unique here, but I wondered if I could do better.

My first thought involved using goat as a get-away method for a bank heist, but I thought it might be slightly confusing, so I rejected it in favour of a jail breakout scene. A prisoner would be using a goat's butting ability to burst through the jails boundary wall.

Before and After Adding Foreground Bricks

When I'd nearly finished, I stood back to review the overall composition. I thought I'd made a mistake, the goat was too far over to the left of the picture, leaving it looking imbalanced. But it was rectified once I'd added foreground bricks bursting out of the wall.

Oh,.. and when doing research for images I made a mistake by searching for "goat butt". Who'd have thought there'd be so many close-up pictures of a goat's rear end available!!!

Cartoon available here --> http://funstreak.thecomicseries.com/comics/46

Webcomics - This isn't Catch-Phrase

Say What You See

My rampant abuse of idioms continued this week with the saying "Cooking The Books", and while it would be obvious to draw a book (or two) boiling away in a big cooking pot, it was starting to feel like I was just churning out ideas that would be better suited to the old TV show 'Catchphrase'

Catchphrase - yes they normally are this simple!!

Those not familiar with the show should know it was all about recognising well known sayings and titles based on cartoon-like drawings. I used to watch this show a lot, probably because I was quite good at it.

The original host was Roy Walker and he would say stuff like..

Quote	What he meant
Say what you see.	You're on TV, just take a guess would ya!
It's good, but it's not right.	No, that's not even close!
Keep pressing and guessing.	We get the funniest answers when you guess.
Riiigghhhttt.	Thank god for that, it was like drawing teeth that one!

**BUT**, this isn't what I want out of FunStreak.

Puntastic, Another List

Yes, I know,.. it's another list (laffs nervously), I guess that's just the way my brain works. I come up with ONE funny pun and then the challenge is on to see how many others I can find to join it. This time I decided to use them in a menu, then it's almost superfluous, but at that stage I still had no idea what my punchline was going to be.

This sounds a lot like the Micawber Principle, which is named after the character from the book David Copperfield who, whilst struggling at near poverty, hangs onto the notion that, "something will turn up". Many comedians build their humour backwards, working retrospectively from the punchline and then adding things they need to set up the joke. It doesn't feel like a very spontaneous way of doing it, but it does work quite well. I find my ideas come frontways, backwards, sideways, all sorts of methods,... no particular pattern or method is ignored. (so I'm not sure what that says about me!!)

I resorted to listing as many types of book I could think of, many of which I couldn't think up puns for. I also decided to steer clear of religious books, such as my personal favourite, "Quran t'bun", because some people waste their lives looking for insults. Hopefully those I did include made up for this serious omission.

Say what you see!!

MAD?.. No, But it Helps!

Introducing Alfred

Last year Alfred E Neuman, the MAD magazine mascot turned 60, having been featured on the cover of almost every magazine since 1956. Originally created by Norman Mingo to be a "What me, worry?" face, copied from postcards and adverts popular in the first part of that century. It has since become a famous image, even for those unfamiliar with the magazine. But due to the picture's origins, a court in 1965 found the image to be effectively in the public domain.

So my worries about basing my work on him where unfounded.

Back to the Idioms

The next item on my list was the phrase "better to give that receive". A phrase often used at Christmas to signify to children the importance of giving. What better than to draw something that most kids wouldn't want to receive.

My black-eyed kid based on MAD's mascot.

He's quite a lop-sided little fella isn't he?!

I started out with a rough copy of Alfred, but after I'd blacked his eye out it didn't seem right to keep that cheeky smile. So I changed the mouth and dropped the left eyebrow. This gives quite a non-destinct look, completely changing the character of the drawing.

The comic can be found at: http://funstreak.webcomic.ws/comics/25

Idioms - Keeping it Simple

Intro

Months and months ago, when I first started using FunStreak for experimenting with ideas, I trawled the web for as many usable idioms and well known sayings as I could find.

I was looking at this list the other day and had been mulling over how to do the next cartoon. I'd chosen "Fighting Fire With Fire" and had always considered it should feature a fireman, maybe on some sort of fireman inititive day failure.

With this in mind I decided to look up similar idioms and maybe have a list:-

• Adding fuel to the fire
• Burn the midnight oil
• Feel the burn
• Keep the home fires burning
• Like a moth to the flame
• Baptism by fire

The list could be, "Sayings that don't help when putting out house fires"

It was OK, but I've created a few list based cartoons recently, so I shelved that idea.

Go For The Simple

In the end simple is king, I'd found a great bit of dialogue and just needed a line to explain what was going on. I could have mentioned the well known saying right then, but I chose not to. I think it's better for it.

You're Fired - Funstreak 28th Sept 2017

Link to the original cartoon: funstreak.webcomic.ws/comics/24