Gag Written

My blog a few days ago about gag writing seemed to really get people talking.

Neal Quigley noted it here and here, EffingComics notied it here, and a lot of good folks emailed, phoned and commented to me about it.

Honestly, I thought it was sort of an easy blog, but turns out it’s a subject not many people talk about.

Not to sound like an after-school TV special, but if you’d like to read more on this subject, check out The Cartoonist’s Muse. I’ve mentioned it here before, but it’s so good I’m gonna keep mentioning it until everyone gets a copy.

Anyway, glad everyone liked that post so much.

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Chicagoland Cartoonist Cabal – 4/4/07

The Chicagoland Cartoonists Cabal has its largest meeting to date last night with four members attending! Woo-hoo!

Cartoonists Brian Diskin, Worth Gowell, Kyle Miller and myself met at Barnaby’s for a few really fun hours of cartoon talk!

Here’s Brian…

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…Worth…

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…and yours truly!

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I’d forgotten about the camera until after Kyle had left, but next time I’ll take two pics of him and catch up.

Topics discussed included pinball and RPG gaming, scuba diving, diapers, and, oh yeah, cartoons!

There was a lot of talk about different possible venues for cartoons, how the web might affect cartooning as a whole, syndication, Flash, education, editors, freelance illustration… Whew!

Honestly, by the end I’d talked myself a little hoarse. It was great!

We also played a exquisite corpse:

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Like I said, what a great time!

Thanks to everyone for coming out! (Special thanks to Kyle for the Nascar Pinball game!)

The Cabal is meeting again in May, and I’m gonna look for a new place to hold it again. Barnaby’s was OK, but our growing ranks need more room for ink slinging.

Also, I’d like to try out this game! (Hat tip to EffingComics, who’s more than welcome next time!)

Hope to see everyone and even a few more there!

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Writing Gags

OK, I’ve been pretty off topic lately, so it’s time to rein it in again and get back to cartoon talk.

I didn’t feel like drawing this afternoon, so I decided to write gags instead.

Having recently watched Tom’s coloring vid, I wish I could stick a recorder or camera in my head to show you what happens, but until that’s possible…

I scrawled some notes out, and although observing the process affects the outcome, it’s pretty close to what goes on. Enjoy!

Scanning Chicago Tribune business section from a few days ago.

Pretty boring. No good catchphrases yet.

Read “Chasing dreams” in headline.

Man in bar to another – “I was all set to chase my dreams, but the damn thing is so fast.”

Lame. “Chasing dreams” is weak and not often used. Move on…

More reading. Nothing. Move to another business section.

Scan… Read… “…no frills approach…” Ooh! I can do something with that.

Frilled lizard at conference table of lizards unhappy with no frills approach.

Weak. Reminds me of that Ren & Stimpy with the frilled Ren. That was funny.

All frills. Nothing but frills. Frill heavy.

Man at in meeting looking at Powerpoint with group – “I see your point, but I’d still prefer the all frills approach.”

Nice. Kinda low-hanging gag, but it’ll do, and better than most low hangers. (Note – hat tip to Mike Lynch for the “low hanging joke” nomenclature.)

More reading… Nothing… Nothing…

“On again, off again…”

Light switch boyfriend. Girl comments about relationship.

Need something that something goes up and down on.

Back to the light switch. Will that work? Kinda weak. Did I do something like this already?

(Look on my website for “dimmer.”)

There it is. Kinda weak even there. Scrap it.

Relationships. Dating. Problems. Mixed Signals.

Semaphore flags. A woman on the couch with semaphore flags, boyfriend complains about mixed signals.

Hmmm… Maybe. What’s the problem?

How would she give bad signals? What else could she use to screw it up?

Morse code. How do you show that? What’s that thing look like?

Other flags. (Look on Google images for “signals”.)

Ooh! There’s something. (Shuttered lights for morse code.) Will people know what that is? Too big for the scene?

Traffic light. No… Back to just the flags…

Come back to it later.

“…gold standard…”

Hold… bold… cold… mold… “I’m proud to say our bleu cheese is the mold standard…”

God… Thats so stupid…

Twitter. IM. Texting. Phone. Cell. Ummm…. Email.

“I tried to get ahold you on IM, text messaging, phone, cell phone, email…”

Where’s that going? What’s the gag?

Nothing there, move on.

Back to reading… New business section.

Scan scan scan… “…mating dance…”

Ummm… what’s that thing when companies go together? (My son comes in and talks to me.)

Damn, I had it a second ago… Merger. That’s it.

Meeting in conference room – “Before we continue, Anderson here will perform the merger dance.”

Man dancing in office. Person outside to another “Oh, that’s just Anderson trying to attract a merger.”

Not bad. Let it marinate in the idea box.

Two down. Last one’s always the hardest.

More scanning… Scanning… Another business section…

“…transparent business…” I’ve done one on this before. Translucent accounting I think.

Worker to boss – “Our accounting is now completely transparent, but now we can’t find it.”

“The good news is our accounting is totally transparent. The bad news is now no one can see it.”

“Damn it, I said make our accounting transparent, not invisible!”

OK, got a third.

More reading… Housing problems… Home Depot worried… Do-it-yourselfers…

Aisle in store with signs “Do it yourself” on one section, “Try it yourself then call a professional” over another.

Lame. Already did something like it a ways back. Moving on…

Daydream… Pick something random… Mushrooms… Fungi…

Woman at bar to giant mushroom – “Listen, it’s not that you’re not a fun guy, but you’re a fungi.”

Bad pun. Bad set-up. Still kinda like it. Let it marinate…

Wait – woman to mushroom at door – “When your ad said fungi, I just thought you’d misspelled ‘fun guy'”

Still no good… Still like the pun… Marinate…

This’ll be a long blog. Need to catch up on blogs tonight… Blogs… Dear diary…

Girl writing in diary – “Dear diary, have to cool it for a while – I think my blog is on to us.”

Nice. OK, that’s four pretty good ones.

And that’s it. It’s both faster and slower, but you get the idea.

Memory

MemoryLast weekend I installed two new gigs of memory in the ol’ iMac (G5 Power PC for those of you playing at home). It was the first time I’d tried doing anything hardware related with either of my Macs besides plugging in some more USB devices.

It was remarkably easy to do, and purchasing non-Apple memory and installing it myself saved me a boatload!

So, a big thanks to Baby Blues artist, Mac aficionado, and all around great guy Rick Kirkman for the advice and encouragement!

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