--- In rmcsforum@..., "Paul" <strongbadforawesome@...>
wrote:
>
>
> Kurt,
>
> Hi. I came up with the first three a day or two ago, and I just
> came up with the last three just now.
>
> Am I improving any? Or do I just not have the idea yet?
>
> 1. http://monkeydyne.com/rmcs/opencomic.phtml?rowid=108031
>
> 2. http://monkeydyne.com/rmcs/opencomic.phtml?rowid=108032
>
> 3. http://monkeydyne.com/rmcs/opencomic.phtml?rowid=108034
>
>
> 4. http://monkeydyne.com/rmcs/opencomic.phtml?rowid=108104
>
> 5. http://monkeydyne.com/rmcs/opencomic.phtml?rowid=108105
>
> 6. http://monkeydyne.com/rmcs/opencomic.phtml?rowid=108106
>
> It's not a big deal if I'm not that funny, I'll just try to see if I
> have other talents.
>
> Thanks for the input so far!
>
> Paul

Enh. There's some funny concepts there, but they're spoiled by your
execution. Take "5" for example.

Concept: Coach expects team members to get physical. But he's coaching
the chess team. It's not a fantastic joke but it has potential.
Execution: By the time I get to the punchline, I'm bored and looking
at my watch. And the punchline is really longwinded.

Here's how I'd do it:

Coach: Dammit Ted, I'm cutting your kid from the team!
Ted: What? Why?

Coach: He's a goddamn sissy! He doesn't take any of my instructions!
Ted: What do you mean?

Coach: I signal him to punch his opposite number in the throat and he
just looks at me!
Ted: You know this is the chess team, right?

Half as many words, same joke, and the punchline is right at the end
where you want it. We establish coach as over-the-top violence as a
solution to every problem - which is expected but still amusing - and
then we give it the unexpected twist of chess right at the very end.

#1 suffers from the same problem of too much unrelated talking before
getting to the point. #2 is okay, but you kill the punchline by making
it go on and on. #3 just makes me sad. #4 resides within the
Meativerse, as it were, but lacks funny - it's just Earl being Earl.
#6 is just jumping up and down on the punchline to #5 to make sure all
the funny has been stomped out of it.

Read some of the best scoring comics - see how they get the funny
across with the minimum words. Here's an example that didn't score
very well, but still scored better than any of those 6 would -
http://www.monkeydyne.com/rmcs/dbcomic.phtml?rowid=4999

I was watching a show about shark fishing and they kept mentioning
chum, and I thought about chums and the strip was born. Really, it's a
teeny tiny joke but I like to think I got the maximum amount of humour
out of it.

My favourite strips are those where panel 3 delivers 2 punchlines -
e.g. http://www.monkeydyne.com/rmcs/dbcomic.phtml?rowid=1353 but
that's rare (here the punchline is he doesn't know 9 is low for a
sperm count, the 2nd is it's in a stool sample, also the whole thing
is gross for extra points).

I've tried to be more helpful than "you suck" but comedy is a very
personal thing. It's possible your sense of humour is simply too
different from that of the members to get an account. Again, read the
"top 30 comics" and try and write stuff like that - if you can, you're
funny generally, if you can't you're just funny to your own clique.

Dave