I don't get how those people like Owlturd or the author of Pigeon gazette manage to do it almost every day- How do I make the funny?
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Nov '20last reply
Nov '20- 7
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Humor is so subjective.
Top cartoonists have to find a way to live in the broadest pocket of what most people find funny or they're gonna have to live with being a niche creator. I don't envy them.
If you're talking about short comic strips specifically (rather than just comedy comics in general) then I have some tips from back when I tried it.
I found that I just don't have the knack for it (I managed to get my comfort zone down to 10-ish panels, but I don't think I can go lower)...the key is to be able to deliver the 'punch' of the joke as fast as possible. Strip the gag down to the bare essentials, set it up in 3 lines or less, then * POW *.
You can see how this would be difficult for people who tend to overthink (e.g. me)...I really like elaborate jokes, and in general I prefer humor that relies on a lot of background info, like an insult perfectly crafted for the character it's aimed at. ^^ Unfortunately, if you wanna do stuff like that, you need either (a) one too-long comic or (b) dozens of setup comics...i.e. a series. So...
I've been studying, though, and I think the easiest way to get better is to focus on that 'strip the gag down to the bare essentials' part. Write down your ideas (even the ones that are too long) and come back to them, day after day, and see what you can condense/edit out. Eventually you may come up with a funnier, more succinct way to make the joke, or find that one joke is actually multiple jokes in a trenchcoat, and you can remove one or two of them.
Some other tips:
-Twitter's character limit has been great for honing my skills in this department. If I wanna post something funny, I have to edit it until it fits, and this practice trains me to find shortcuts and...y'know, all that stuff I said above.
-Context is over-rated. You may think "but people won't laugh if they don't know WHY this is funny/WHO these characters are", etc. Chances are they WILL laugh, if the joke has enough "punch" (for example, an insult, or something slapsticky; anything with an immediate humorous element). 'Goof' humor has made a comeback over the last few decades; take advantage of it and post the random joke.
Just like there exists story telling structures and conventions they also exist in strips. Joke structure can be applied to really any number of panels but the simple 4 panel comic has a Japanese equivalent called 4 Koma that has a specific structure that also follows classic joke structure.
The function of the four panels (thx WIkipedia):
Ki (起): The first panel forms the basis of the story; it sets the scene.
Shō (承): The second panel develops upon the foundation of the story laid down in the first panel.
Ten (転): The third panel is the climax, in which an unforeseen development occurs.
Ketsu (結): The fourth panel is the conclusion, in which the effects of the third panel are seen.
You’ll notice a lot of strips you see are following this format whether they intend to or not. Here’s a link explaining a bit about joke structure: https://stand-upcomedy.com/blog/how-to-write-jokes-joke-structure-part-1/40
It gets a lot easier to do them everyday once you get a lot of practice. I only consider myself OKAY at strips but I can rattle off a week’s worth in a few hours if I have to with no problem (though now I only do them occasionally). My partner on the other hand has had years more strip experience than me and one time just quickly drew a month of strips in a week just in his downtime to prove a point and it was wild. But it just goes to show how much it all comes down to practice and the folks you mentioned as examples in your post are folks who have been honing their skills consistently over a period of YEARS.
I can also point to some fun brainstorming exercises that might help if you want!
I am so relived to read others say how not easy this is. I'm sick of seeing "advice" on Reddit telling newcomers that the easiest way to start in comics is short gags.
If one is trying something way out of their comfort zone, it's a bit much to expect them to land it perfectly without slowly working into it! How many panels does it take for you to deliver a joke normally? Take note of that and then challenge yourself to make a joke that takes a few less panels. Say the shortest you've ever done took 10 panels. Try to tell one in 8!
Seeing how you naturally translate your own humour may help you self edit into a faster formatted genre.
What inspired me was mini-storylines in the old comic strips like Garfield and Get Fuzzy and Pearls Before Swine and stuff, where the strips would follow a plot for 4-5 comics at a time, but each one still has its own joke and you don't need any context necessarily. After reading about a billion of those, I feel like I kind of "get it" even though I can't explain it (I'm also not particularly good at four panel comics lol).
Then, Japanese 4komas are often released in manga magazines in chapters, so they'll have 8-10 strips at a time and each of them will be part of the same story quite explicitly. Sometimes the jokes aren't as funny with this method, but the storytelling is stronger (and that's where a lot of webcomic strips take more inspiration, I think).
Fun practice is in trying to tell a story with a plot, but at four panels at a time. It's really, really hard!
This has definitely been something I've been trying to improve on, as each episode of my web series (below) has only four panels.
I'm greatly inspired by Calvin and Hobbes where comedy/philosophy could be conveyed in a short spurt. I'd also say that some of my "punchlines" are more heartwarming/wholesome than comedic, depending on the storyline of that episode.
It's great reading all the advice/comments on this thread, and I guess practice makes perfect!!!
At the end of the day, nothing is easy, even when you're used to doing a particular activity. With each new project, new difficulties almost always arise.
But if not, other than that, did you want to create a comic strip or is it just out of curiosity?
And as for me, for my part I followed ... taking into account my irregular work rhythm, the advice of an old site of an association teaching young people to create comics. And among the tips and tricks they provided, they provided a working method to build a comic strip consisting of first finding the fall before the start and the middle of the joke.
This technique is called the reverse gag, and has been used by the big names of Franco-Belgian comics (and I suppose in America and Asia too, the proof precisely with the Yonkoma) and is still by comic artists .
Once you have found the fall, you will just have to go back to the course of the action by looking for what caused this situation, how everything to start to get there.
Then, the general organization for making the comic strip will differ slightly from what you would have had for a longer comic strip, I think? Because I only do comic strips, so I have no experience in terms of long history.
On the other hand, when I speak of organization, I mean this:
1.Writing the story (takes a lot of time. To find the fall of the joke and how to bring it smoothly to the reader without rushing. Sometimes I even start already visualized the segmentation of the boxes / sequences / shots of the scenario)
2.Do graphic research if necessary, in addition to literature research to write the story. (this part is not very important for me, I forget it altogether. So the design ... or rather my level in drawing, is sketchy)
3.Write the screenplay (like I said, I tend to write the story and the screenplay at the same time. To do this, I just need to have some semblance of a synopsis or summary to work with)
4.Staging the comic strips using storyboard (s) (similarly, the storyboard (s) are closely linked to the scenario so they are worked on and pofin for weeks or even months.)
(then, it's just a matter of tidying everything up by building the final product, not forgetting the next ones, like ... as far as the episode cover is concerned. But that does not prevent us from having
last minute unforeseen events requiring changing two or three things in the scenario)
5.Make the sketches of the final panels (lineart, etc)
6.And inked it all
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