INsights: I stopped by Jim Richardson’s ”How to Tell a Joke”website (http://www.jimrichardson.com/write.shtml ) because this happens to be the EXACT name of my friend (and long time boss), who often talked of becoming a comedian.
Basically I looked through some of my scripts and didn’t find them funny. So I tried to google out the cosmic source of all funny. INstead I found that weird website tutorial. While i found it mostly useless (and couldn’t figure out why the rodney dangerfield joke was supposed to be remotely humorous. huh.), I was struck by the idea (Johnny Carson’s) that each punch line has a punch word. This is the word on which the audience gets the punchline, and starts laughing. The advice that you should try not to place any words after this crucial word: strikes me as magic. The science of the speed of thought, and the mechanics of pacing revelations. yowza.
Anywho. I was trying to figure out how to make a joke out of this weird abstract conversation on breaking up with yourself. But for some reason, after reading that website, i just jotted down the strip you see above. hmm.
Reflecting, it seems a little lame to play the pedophile card. I’m getting more tired of using big violence or taboo insult words for the punch. But when i stopped to evaluate whether the strip needed editing, it seemed perfect that it concerned what i used to do as a “kid” and how now i try not to fuck “kids”. Like there was some deep life lesson being hinted at, concerning the way in which we relate to the up and coming little versions of ourselves. so i left it alone. Though i did add the word “big” to the final frame. Because it seemed to make the notion of confessing to pedophilia more goofy. still kind of waffling on that simple word. weird.
um, visually, I just made a new mouth for the head-on Viddy shot, so he could speak to the camera without a large grin (which is used in final frame). And I selected the background color from the last strip and gaussian blurred it (and tweaked hue/saturation) until it reminded me of the trippy washed out oil colors from Paul Anderson’s PunchDrunkLove trailers. The colors aren’t varied enough to really connotate that visual style. but they’re different enough from past strip backgrounds that I left it alone and moved on.
Weee! I continue to be haunted by the seemingly simple mechanics of telling a joke. I am sure if I can just nail down a reliable approach to these mechanics, then all aspects of my art (in all mediums) will improve. It is a strange scary faith, in something that may well never come into focus. Weee!
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