Ideas

I just put up a new comment on my Facebook page: "I wish I had a frigate, because it's a friggin' nice day". After posting it, I envisioned a cartoon featuring an old British Navy commodore on his poop deck saying "What a friggin' nice day".

This is something I encounter on a pretty frequent basis: If I--or someone else--says something funny, should I save it for a QlownTown cartoon? Do I jot down every funny thing I encounter?

No. I recognize that while I've made a choice to do this comic strip, I can't expect to save all the humor I encounter in life for the strip. I've already cataloged every strip I'll be doing through the end of 2009, anyway---so I don't have to stress about ideas. (At least not yet; we'll see how I am a year or five from now.)

Some things that I hear are very funny in the context of what's happening, anyway, not funny enough for a one-shot cartoon. [The strip may evolve over time into a more situational strip like For Better or For Worse or Monty, but I really like the punch of a self-contained comic. You don't need to know Mr. Binkles (yes, there will be regular characters in QlownTown soon, and they will have names) to laugh when smoke comes out of his stovepipe hat when he's grilling burgers, or know the two bears with clothes strewn about the forest floor around them who comment that "that was a grisly encounter".] Some things in my life are very funny and I/we laugh out loud, but they're a part of life and belong to me, not to my website. Real life is for living, not doing one's job all the time.

I'll admit that sometimes, when I come up with something that really tickles the person I'm talking to (or vice versa), I'll pull out my trusty phone/PDA/camera/jet pack and jot down the idea; but more often than not, I come up with ideas as a regular practice, as part of my workday. I sit at my desk, read the paper and online stuff, and sketch out ideas as they hit me. After all, who can complain about thinking up humorous stuff being part of your job?

So, for now at least, the frigate/friggin' joke will just remain a Facebook comment. Now, in a year or five from now...