Neutral Octopus Button-down
Apr27
on April 27, 2021
at 12:00 am
Suggested wine pairing: pinot noir.
Thanks to The Fullest Circle for sending in this comic!
Oh, and it’s time for
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He’s a serial killer lumberjack, one that lumbers the jacks in the world so that he can chop up victims to sell to jokers and queens for half price.
He’s never won a card game in his life though, as all the jacks in his deck were headhunted to extinction.
Of course, were they infact a dollman, they would not be a lumberjack, as the two are mortal enemies. Akin to pirates versus ninjas versus snailbear.
(Snailbear wins by the way)
This comment is in reference to something in the horse name review because google is being a piece of absolute garbage (like it usually is) and won’t let me sign in to comment there. I also accidentally posted it on a different comic page a moment ago, whoops!
“Beef Broff” is SUCH a Homestar Runner way of naming a thing, that I’m not even entirely sure it isn’t a deliberate reference to a sbemail that specifically calls something that.
when I finally send my WYOMING IV entry, people will think the flying can is a reference. she is not.
in light of your opinion on Mandaloun, I request a review of Capiz.
She got decrappertated!!
MESHA: Why doesn’t he sell them to kings? As the highest face card, I’d expect they’d be able to pay the most. Much more than a lowly joker, anyway.
Ahno: Thank heavens. If they were to team up, they’d be unstoppable. Just killing people and then cutting down their trees until there’s no society left.
Xin: I guess it is pretty Homestaresque, but I was was thinking of this: http://mountaincomics.com/comic/mountain-time-544/
Bern: It’s a windowpane oyster AND the seafood capital of the Philippines? Pretty impressive, but likely overwhelming for a horse.
Cold: I mean, she never had a head in the first place, but punman recognizes punman.
isto: It’s because everytime he sells a jack’s head to a king, the either rejects half price in favor of stealing everything the killer has, or sets in motion a butterfly effect that leads to clouds of butterflies raining anvil condors on the killer.
All in all, he should just move to a different country where the king’s aren’t so taxingly brutal towards half price.
Ahno: What would happen if the lumberjack fused with the snailbear to battle the Dillman or vice versa?
MESH: I dont know, but i do know that the dillman would fuse with vinigarman and cucumberman to create pickleman.
Oh nice, I get double-billing with the derby review.
Speaking of which, can you guys read my comic and tell me how much it sucks? Thanks.
(There may be a Mountain Daylight Time 2 in your future…)
@TheFullestCircle
the beginning and end are very Mountain Time. They’re not my favourite types of MT joke, I can’t really comment because I don’t get the references and I’ve never thought about doing “walk in on an ongoing reference” or “someone is randomly mean” jokes.
the middle is funny dialogue with visual gags. that’s something I think about a lot, and I don’t find yours funny.
my version:
frame 1
Cap: “Harvey stole it. FUCK YOU HARVEY!”
frame 2
harvey from the front: “Maybe I should call my practice Harvey Dent”
Cap brandishing a baseball bat: “Maybe I should call MY practice Riley Dent, cuz the only dent I see is MY handiwork!”
frame 3
Harvey from the side: “You don’t have a dental practice Riley”
Cap: “And you WILL NEVER HAVE a dental practice, sucks being DEBARRED!”
explanation:
don’t explain things that can be easily inferred. understanding on your own is more funny. also this gives space for more jokes.
communicate a backstory that is also funny.
contrast between participants in a conversation – their personality, emotions and understanding of that conversation.
contrast within each character – the person who is yelling and petty has a good reason. the participants in a stupid conversation are educated.
Thanks for the advice. I’m aware that it mostly sucked and I’m hoping they get gradually better as time goes on.
If you don’t mind me throwing in my two cents, I’d point out panel 4.
With comics, the reader has to do a lot of the work, and it’s a lot easier if the flow of conversation is clear. In your panel 4, the reader might read the “I see” before they read the hat character’s text. It’s definitely worth it to figure out a way to make sure it reads in the right order. Maybe move hat guy’s speech bubble far left and place the “I see” bubble in the middle.
*Edited to remove late-night meandering
Harsh words from Overbern; harsh but fair I’d say if I agreed, but I don’t really. I’m not sure if I’d find the alternative version an improvement, to be honest, although describing a comic instead of drawing it will naturally do it a disservice of course. Maybe my mind’s eye is to blame. (The fact that I don’t know who Riley Dent is probably doesn’t help either…)
That’s not to say my own critique would be worth anything though, since I can’t clarify what I like about the jokes in any rigourous way — all I can say is I found TheFullestCircle’s comic to be funny overall, and I wanted to add a more positive comment. I like the drawing style and kind of rough-around-the-edges flow, it reminds me of a cross between earlier MT and those trippy fan comics that used to get posted many years ago at the other classic absurdist-stick-figure-comic, Super Mega. As for the flow of conversation, those speech balloons could have been placed better, yeah.
I just pulled Riley out of the air, looked it up and it was a baseballer and I had already imagined the baseball bat. it’s not meant to be a pun or reference, but it definitely should have been.
my criticism seems a bit overconfident in hindsight. I don’t exactly get much independent review of whether what I’ve written of recent is funny; if anyone has any, lay it into me.
did anyone understand the “chicken tenders are the result of an eldritch ritual, and are nearly-people who tend chickens” bit from 1061?
does anyone vividly remember specific parts of the talking about sphinxes curse?
the WYOMINGs are ancient at this point and I know they are bad.
on rigirous explanation of jokes: a joke is funny when I start thinking about one, but the more I do, the less funny it becomes to me. kinda have to recall those initial feelings, then look to properties of funny things in general, and see if those appear in this one.
the humor stays longer with more complex jokes, which could explain why – when trying to make a scene funnier – my thought process drifts from trying to create funny dialogue towards trying to create a coherent, funny situation for that dialogue.