Day: August 2, 2007

OK, I’ve been blabbing on and on about non-cartoon stuff for a while again, so back to cartoon blogging with another cartoon that works, and why.

Let’s look at this cartoon:

OK. first the art:

Again, a very very simple scene. A sidewalk and a brick wall hinted at. The character, however, really took some attention to detail for the joke to work.

I hunted down every deck of cards in the house to get sort of a consensus king. Well, for the head, anyway; the body isn’t really important.

Often when I do characters like this I’ll do more of a wiggly line in the clothing and sign for a dirtier, more unkempt look, but for some reason I didn’t here.

Although I do have the font of my handwriting, I did hand letter the sign to get a more realistic look.

The joke:

To be honest, I’m not even really sure what the joke is here. Was the king himself lost during a shuffle? Did he lose his status during a shuffle? You could go even a little further afield, but those are probably the best options.

This thing is, it’s a pretty funny cartoon right off the bat. When you think about it any deeper, it’s a little odd, and then sort of confusing. Or maybe that’s just me having overanalyzed it.

Anyway, a good joke, even if I can’t really explain why.

The sale:

Sold and colored for Reader’s Digest:

I spent some time in Photoshop getting some texture and color effects, and I like how it turned out.

Often publications will remove my signature in the lower right, so I moved it up a tad and made sure it was placed within the color.

Well that’s it. Anyone have any other theories on the gag?

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