I don’t know about that - the Hesiod strip did a good job of packing in enough context to understand the humor. I hadn’t heard of the man before seeing that strip, but I understood that he was an ancient Greek who’d been responsible for naming a number of constellations. That was sufficient to get the funny. The Hume strip, too, was fairly self-contained - you need to know the “Who’s on First/Who’s on second” sketch, but you needn’t know who Hume was.
XKCD, by comparison, is much worse at being self-contained - still very funny, but it does require a much higher level of background knowledge.
Thanks. I think I was confused because I thought the Mom was literally referring to ancient Hesiod and his appearance was a flashback or in her imagination.
I think the best humorists will necessarily be inconsistent. If you aren’t taking risks, you aren’t going to be great. Taking risks means sometimes the joke falls flat.
Not very funny or interesting. But WAY more funny and interesting than any other comics I ever see. The bar for comic strips is very low, as long as you don’t bring up Calvin & Hobbes or The Far Side. The “fancy humor” one was amusing, but kind of a Kids in the Hall ripoff.
I never realized Far Side was supposed to be funny, and not groan inducing, like every other print comic.
I found this exactly as funny as Far Side, but definitely more interesting. I think that, despite understanding the jokes, my sense of humor wants simpler fare. For me, humor is all about finding the absurdity in life itself–and then making fun of people for it.
