What was the strangest/funniest/most embarrassing thing you had to research for your comic?

[indagold]

Welcome Back I did a lot of research with psychology and dreams and found a lot of bizarre things like at least 60% of dreams are sexual, your unconscious mind is active while you sleep which has no societal limitations so making sweet love to your grandma in your dreams could happen or murdering people... but it doesn't mean you want to.

Also reading about mental illness and having bipolar I always found some bipolar stories tragically funny. Like someone would just blow their life savings on gummy bears and dump them in the forest to "set them free" because at the time it sounded rational. Of course i'm not talking about the hell that the it is, just the weird funny tidbits.

And also looking at weird new age approaches to psychology like "you don't have depression, you got ghosts and 13 evil auras. Here's some donkey kidneys and organic potatoes that should cure it". Gotta love the new agers.

[spadesart]

would vampires drink period blood

[KoreanTacos]

Man I've had to research so many stupid things for my comics, but the most bizarre thing I recall having to research was fan fiction...

[MST3KFan]

Hmm... Recently I did a comic about PC game modding...and well, there's some things seen that cannot be unseen that I made a joke about in my comic even...

[J.Lovelace]

Googling "doug jones awards"
Mr. Jones makes the best poses ever at any awards ceremony! XD Never fails to make me laugh.

[SleepingPoppy]

So my immediate response was to google this, and oh my gosh. XD

[Mocha]

...cannibalism and how to summon demons. I'm never going back to there again my poor mind has seen enough. ; m ;

Edit: I forgot to mention cult recruitment tactics...that was fun.

[J.Lovelace]

Oh yes XD He's so awesome XD

[KSlinger]

I have no access to kids and see none day to day so researching little boys and girls has been a weird experience. I don't know what the ages look like or how they talk or what kind of things they do and how intelligent they are etc. so my search history was this weird, nervous journey along the lines of 'seven year old girl' 'seven year old boy' 'ten year old boy?' 'five year old boy?' 'kids on the beach' 'pages from child's diary' 'interview with a seven year old' 'interview with a five year old' 'how do kids talk' 'children arguing' 'kids play' 'child skeleton' 'child height at seven'

I was just like what am I doing?!

Also, I'm not very close to my dad, never have been, and it suddenly dawned on the other day that I genuinely have no idea how dads behave around their daughters- like how they talk or if they touch or anything- and I felt waaay too pathetic to google it. And then I was like...I could text people and ask, but that'd be so damn weird. In the end I settled for the slightly less weird option of observing fathers around me and watching a lot of films about families. Bob's Burgers was also there to save the day. God I hope it turns out alright.

[VermillionWorks]

Let's see...
I looked up gravedigging and burials in the '30s, LIVE burial, how one makes a Mickey Finn....I'm pretty sure anyone who looked through my browsing history would think I'm a serial killer.

[KSlinger]

Oh man, my university dissertation focused on dead viking babies- you should have seen the stuff I was googling. I'm on at least 3 different watch lists now.

[joannekwan]

I looked up how to dehorn cattle and how and when baby calves start to grow their horns. -_-

[shaneoid77]

Dwarf porn (don't ask)

[miesmud]

I wouldn't really say I've searched for strange things.
But after looking for guys fashion and sports wear, my ads have changed a lot.

Google probably thinks I'm very sporty guy, while I'm actually a lazy girl haha.

[boniae]

Since my comic is set in a very specific time period (Japan in 1995) I've had to look up a bunch of oddly specific things to make sure I'm keeping within the '95 date: how Japanese cellphone models looked, some particular punk albums/songs that were released in '95, and certain fashions (I spent a lot of time on corbis historical archive since they have specific date/location functions). I think the funniest thing I did though was "walk around" some suburban places in Yokohama on google street view every now and then, it's actually so fun, but still pretty hilarious I do it. :'D

[NickRowler]

I was trying to look up different disorders so that I could present them in a realistic way (even tho my comic is not that realistic).

I was looking up something about how someone can read but not be able to spell. And how someone can talk but can't form audible words (so they can't verbally communicate but they are not mute).

But I guess that is not too weird. I did once tried to look up Turkish outfits, because I wanted a Turkish inspired outfit for a character. But some of the pics that came up were Turkey (the bird) costumes.

I also did once look up shirtless middle age/old men because I thought "shirtless men" did not really come up with the body type I was looking for. But that was not really for my comic.

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

The strangest thing I had to research off the top of my head?

"Was cocaine still legal in 1912?"

It was.

[SynCypher]

Most of what I researched was animal behavior, primarily Hyena behavior (and it is strange, let me tell you). "Hyena coat patterns," "Hyena teeth," "Hyena claws," "How do Hyena's give birth," "Hyena social structure," "Hyena babies," and this fell in line with other facets of research following the same vein in regards to other animals. Suddenly, lots of videos in my Youtube and google suggestions say things like: End poaching, how one park stopped poachers, exotic pets aren't pets, and so on. I'm pretty sure my browser thinks I'm Cruella DeVil now.

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

Gotta get those spotted hyenas. Make 'em all into coats!

[Luminosophy]

Researching gore/ mutilation/ crime scenes etc. I don't like pretending it doesn't happen, I write for mature audiences. But I also don't like it when authors take it way over the top for "shock and horror" value which in my opinion, doesn't work. So I look it up not only to see the natural ways the body reacts to certain types of injuries, but also to desensitize myself in order to draw it as well.