What other one-panel (or similar-style) cartoons does anyone remember liking?
Somewhere I have a book that includes a cartoon showing a couple leaving the house, with Dad talking to the babysitter on the way out. The scene is a typical living room, except for the lightswitch panel beside the front door. Two of the three switches are normal, but the middle one, mysteriously, seems to be a big plunger or suction cup or something. The caption is Dad’s words to the sitter:
“Billy’s already asleep, so you should have no trouble with him. Johnny should go to bed around 8:00. We’ll be downtown at the Paramount if there’s any emergency. This switch is the garage light, this one will suck the face right off your skull, and this one’s the porch. There’s pizza in the fridge. We’ll be home around 11:00.”
Many B. Kliban cartoons. Most know him for his cats, but he was very much like Gary Larson.
A favorite shows a man seated at a fancy restaurant with a giant fly. The man is ordering “I have the Gazpacho, leeks vinaigrette with shrimp, marinated zucchini, orange mousse, a bottle of cotes du Rhone, rouge '59, and brings some shit for my fly.”
So many Bloom County strips to choose from. I used to have one on my computer at work:
Oliver Wendell Jones, Bloom County’s resident hacker, is having trouble with his new IBM Banana Jr. computer. He’s on the phone to tech support while the computer (standing up on its legs) watches.
Tech support asks him if he’s told the computer where they’ll put his primary memory chips if he’s returned. Oliver says no, and tech says, “Put him on the phone.”
The final frame shows the computer listening to the tech guy shouting over the phone, “Toaster ovens! Did you hear me?! Programmable toaster ovens!!!”
One of my all-time favorites was one I saw in National Lampoon many years ago. There is man sitting at a table in a restaurant, and the guy has a big puffy face that’s all purple-looking and covered in veins, and the waiter is saying “Frankly sir, for you I wouldn’t recommend any kind of wine.”
National Lampoon had some awesome cartoons.
Hooray for Kliban, but I think he was more subversive and less mainstream that Larson (and funnier too (and I enjoy The Far Side, so this is not meant as a bash against Gary Larson)).
His cartoons are a little difficult to understand without visuals; I’ve been thumbing through books to find a good one. The best candidate has an artist at his easel by the side of the road. A car is driving by, one of the occupants is mooning and another shouts “Hey, ottist! Paint this!”
Gary Larson did it great, Charles Addams did it first, but Gahan Wilson does it best!
Renaissance inventor showing a friend a TV set: “. . . But then I realized that to make it work I’d have to invent a socket and God only knows what else.”
Guy with big goofy-manic smile, walking down the street talking into a 1980s brick-sized cell phone: “These new portable phones are great! I can walk around all day talking to myself and nobody looks at me like I’m crazy!”
Guy lying on a psychiatrist’s couch. In the easy chair next to him is a bearded, bespectacled corpse in advanced decomposition. “How long has it been, doctor, since we had our little disagreement?”
Guy on psychiatrist’s couch, dressed as Napoleon, looking over some papers; next to him, two more guys standing at attention, wearing Napoleonic army uniforms. Psychiatrist: “We’ll never get anywhere with these constant interruptions from the front!”
Two Buddhist monks sitting zazen. One whispers to other out of the corner of his mouth: “Nothing comes next. This is it.”
Two archaeologists in the jungle looking at a set of childishly crude ruins (what appears to be an idol, somewhat resembling a snowman made out of boulders, is visible): “I don’t know, Professor, this civilization is so primitive it hardly seems worth our time.”
What really does it is Wilson’s artistic talent. Words are inadequate to convey the nuances of the pictures.
One of my favorite Kliban cartoons showed two robbers in a bank surrounded by about fifty cops, all with their guns drawn and pointed at the robbers. One robber says to the other, “Switch to plan B.”
A guy with six arms, all in casts; “I had an accident with the copying machine.”
A thug holding a gun on a scientist; “Why? Because you know too much, that’s why!”
A guy in a snowy Christmas tree lot: : “No, it’s not about togetherness or Christmas cheer. I just like murdering inferior life forms with an axe.”
“You son has been mauled by bears…all right, all right! They were Gummi bears. He’ll live, but he’s going to be sticky.”
A marriage counselor and two robots, one male and one female looking, both with elaborate control panels. “Your problem is, both of you keep pushing each other’s buttons.”
From Dragon magazine:
A guy with a gigantic herd of reindeer trailing behind him; “I used to be a thief, until I found a magic ring and wished for a million bucks.”
A bunch of adventurers looking at a huge crate with a slot in the side. On the side is also written Contents: One (1) Minotaur; insert sword in slot for 1500 experience points. “I don’t know, it just isn’t the same.”
And a little obscure:
A bunch of fantasy adventurers are looking at a sign reading “BEWARE OF THE OGRE”, one is saying “Ha, we can handle an ogre easy!” About twenty feet on either side of the group are a set of huge tank treadmarks.
The cartoon Rubes by Leigh Rubin: A man named Phelps is standing at the Pearly Gates before St. Peter. St. Peter is saying, “Since your name doesn’t appear to be on the guest list, Mr. Phelps, we hope you’ll enjoy this destination-appropriate consolation prize.” In St. Peter’s hand is the consolation prize - a jumbo bag of marshmallows.
In Bizarro by Dan Piraro: The cartoon shows Batman in shackles. The caption: “Batman is captured by the evil Dr. Literal.” Dr. Literal is mixing up a huge bowl filled with live insects while declaring, “The encyclopedia states that a bat can eat up to 3000 insects in a single night.”
From Playboy: A man is eating breakfast. His wife enters the kitchen and cheerily exclaims, “What’cha eatin’, Honey?” On the table next to the man is a box of cereal labeled “Nut 'N Bitch.”
Bizarro has had some good Batman (and other superhero) gags. There was one a while back captioned “The Joker strikes again” and shows Batman and Robin sitting in a booth in a diner, with Batman holding a salt shaker where the top has come off and dumped a pile of salt on his food.
Another favorite that I remembered from National Lampoon. A man is standing at the counter in an ice cream shop and the list of flavors behind the counter shows “Wood”, “Corn”, “Glue”, and “Vanilla”. The man behind the counter says “Sorry, we’re all out of vanilla.”
A guy is sitting in a chair reading an eye chart. The optometrist is coming up behind him with a large knife. The eye chart reads 'I am an insane eye doctor and I am going to kill you now as you sit there reading this!.. ’
