this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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"Subverting expectations" is like jazz.
A good jazz musician knows the rules of music. They choose which ones to bend and which ones to break. When a couple of rules are broken here and there it's pleasurable and exciting.
When too many rules are broken, it's Yoko Ono.
Sure, but I think this is not Yoko Ono.
The core of humor is doing something unexpected. "Willy Wonka makes turnips" is unexpected. The same is true with "Charlie doesn't like what Willy Wonka makes".
The problem is that both of those things are telegraphed really early, thus defusing any surprise they could have delivered. By the last frame we expect Charlie to have a bad time at Willy Wonka's factory, and he does.
This comic is making animal noises into a microphone and Chuck Berry wants to slap the shit out of it.
You are not thinking with portals.
Yep, it's definitely that and not the fact that this is a dogshit comic.
Nosiree.
Have you ever seen like anything from Monty Python? i'm genuinely curious I know comedy is, obviously, subjective, but this comic has a distinctive quality and it's hard for me to see it labeled as "shitty".
Yeah, I've seen all of Flying Circus and all of their movies.
Monty Python did absurdist stuff, but they didn't violate core principles of timing and surprise. Jokes recurred or dragged at times without overstaying their welcome.
A piece of absurdist humor still needs to be humorous. Being weird doesn't absolve something from being boring or pointless.
I don't know what to tell you, if Monty were to do this it'd be dragged longer, the stern granpa would be histerically yelling and beating Charlie the whole way through and 8 minutes into the sketch an oompa loompa would walk in a suit and reference a line from 6 sketches before.
But I guess everybody truly is different and that's ok, I guess. Maybe.
Yeah, and there would have been a bunch of punchlines throughout.
Storytelling of any kind is about setups and payoffs. The comic has two actual, decent setups and zero payoffs. In fact all of the praise for the comic comes from people (including you) who explicitly said what made them laugh was what they "imagined*.
It's the creator's job to actually provide a good payoff at the end. Yes, threads can be left hanging. Yes, things can be left to the imagination. But in this case specifically both of those strategies are abused to the point that the only way this comic is even passable is if readers are extremely charitable and provide their own ending.
I think you are wrong is all I can realistically come up with.
You don't need a punchline and an author has no duty. I would also argue plenty of stuff from Monty Python (and we are referencing ancient classical stuff by the way) have no punchline and make the lack of a punchline part of the comical experience.
Just look at this thing, there's a stern father reprimending Charlie saying "IT IS WONDERFUL AND YOU ARE GOING". Granpa on the brick of death is staring into the void filled with the dream of visiting the turnip factory!
You must laugh GODDAMNIT!
Here's a joke for you: A man is ROWING down a RIVER. He gets to the waterfall, and when the goes over the edge he yells "RADIO!!!"
So did I just disrespect you and waste your time, or do I get a pass because it's so random and it subverts your expectations of how a joke could be structured?
Being weird, or quirky, or SuBveRtInG eXpEcTatiONs doesn't give anybody a pass for their creations not working on a basic level.
You entertained me, because of the context. If you were able to draw it and contextualize it maybe setting it in a well known fictional universe, mixing it with themes of the wonder of a coming of age, the machination of the industry, the generational gap and a sense of rythm in the way the narration is paced and represented, I would probably find it brilliant.
That's the thing, I feel like this comic didn't drag on long enough. It ended too early to tell us the full joke.