His eyes are open, so he sees the trouble coming. He figures, “I’m getting outta here.” Next in line follows him and finds he’s chillin’ in bed playing on his guitar.
He marches to the tune of a different instrument playing.
Teenager decides he isn’t into team sports (if all your friends jumped off a bridge, wouldn’t you joint them?), his mom (with old lady hair) finds him alone in his bedroom.
Is there a reason why someone walking away from a physical calamity would go to his bedroom and play a guitar rather than, say, go to an ice cream shop and eat a sundae?
And why is it funny that he went to his room to play the guitar?
I’m filing this under “…… and?….”
I didn’t notice the hair; it’s not the next in line.
He’s just too cool to do what everyone else does. Everyone knows that cool kids wear dark glasses and play guitar (or is it bass now?).
Playing “Another brick in the wall” I suppose.
He’s the only woke domino in a herd of sheeple.
Olivier for the win!
Spot on!
Maybe he didn’t like the political candidate on stage? This IS a domino rally after all…
He’s a non-conformist. He’d rather compose tunes in his own little world than contribute to society.
He figures there’s no point in contributing to society since he observes it to be falling down around him.
If you examine the first panel, you’ll see that there are two tiles that add up to 5, and four tiles that add up to 7. In fact, two of those “seven” tiles are identical: they are both made up of “three” and “four.”
There’s not enough uniqueness; too many people want to be just like everybody else. The rebel tile, however, prefers not to be like everybody else and makes the decision to pursue music — much to the chagrin of his mom.
But in panel 3 and 4 he’s not a rebel. He just sees what going to happen. And even if he is a rebel… why is it supposed to be funny?
woozy: In panel 5, the other dominos look surpised that he’s leaving, and not surprised that a bunch of them have been knocked over. I don’t think he’s the only domino to realize what’s going to happen. He’s the only domino who doesn’t want to participate. That’s what makes him a rebel.
I guess it’s just supposed to be funny because you don’t expect a domino to be a rebel. It doesn’t really work for me, though.
It’s Derek
I think that’s it.
Or Fats.
“I guess it’s just supposed to be funny because you don’t expect a domino to be a rebel. ”
Why the heck not? In fact, if you are going to have a joke about dominos being knocked over, isn’t that *exactly* what you’d expect? Or does the cartoonist think people will be going to his cite expecting a documentary and be surprised that its actually is a joke instead.
woozy: You asked why it’s “supposed to be funny,” not why it “is funny.” It seems to me your complaint at this point is just that it’s not funny – you’re recognizing there’s a twist in the story, but saying that it’s not good because you already expect a twist in a joke anyway, so it needs to be a better one than this. Like I said, I didn’t find this comic funny, so I can’t defend the actual funniness.
” if you are going to have a joke about dominos being knocked over”
Domininoes like to like up, and expect, or at least accept, that they’re going to be knocked over.
Today is typo day. Dominoes like to line up. Rubber baby buggy bumpers. Rubber…
winter wallaby. fair enough. But I’m just kind of dumbfounded. Humor, even bad and predictably humor, assumes the twist be a twist. Simple anthropomorphism is not enough (at least not the second time it is done). A domino walking away from a falling chain is a bit like a tree in a public park saying “Ow, you just stepped on my root” to a passing pedestrian. Now it is true you don’t expect a tree to say “Ow, you just stepped on my root”. But if one does… well, it doesn’t really impress you in any way.
“Now it is true you don’t expect a tree to say ‘Ow, you just stepped on my root’. But if one does… well, it doesn’t really impress you in any way.”
How jaded you must be, to be so utterly unimpressed by a talking tree.
Hey, man, he just like refuses to be a cog in the machine, man!
“How jaded you must be, to be so utterly unimpressed by a talking tree.”
oh, I’d be impressed. I just wouldn’t think it was funny.
And having a talking tree in a story or a a cartoon is not the same as a talking tree in reality.
Of course, if it were a tree in a cartoon I’d be expecting it to say something funny so I wouldn’t be expecting it to say “Ow, you stepped on my root”. So you could say I *wasn’t* expecting that.
…. but it still wouldn’t be funny. It takes more than “you wouldn’t expect” to be funny.
Or maybe I *would* expect a tree to say “Ow, you stepped on my root” and I’d expect a domino to say “screw this” and walk away. But I’d also expect *more*. If a tree talking or a domino were truly creative that’d be acceptable, but they aren’t and once you accept a talking domino or a talking tree complaining about root stepping or walking away from a domino chain is the *least* you’d expect.
I’m really getting the impression that the Buni cartoonist bar of what an audience would expect is becoming surreally and unfathomably low.
Professional cartoonists have an editor at the syndicate whose job it is to point out, and reject for publication, the cartoons that don’t turn out funny. Self-published webcomics don’t have that.
Editors are writers who can’t consistently produce publishable material on deadline. Most of them know this. A good editor’s job is to make the editee look good, by producing the best possible work as close as possible to the drop-dead deadline; when it’s done well it’s invisible. People only notice editing when it is done poorly.
This quality of editing is similar to IT… nobody thinks about the IT staff when everything is working well and all the IT resources are available, with good response times.
Have you ever set up a long string of dominos and set them falling, only to have the fall-progression interrupted by a gap you hadn’t seen before?
You don’t remember the gap. Maybe it was caused by a domino that walked away. If so, where is that domino now? What could he be doing?
This is HIS story.
He’s the Mario Savio of dominoes!
J-L has an A+ theory that explains my entire childhood…
Comics I Don't Understand 
His eyes are open, so he sees the trouble coming. He figures, “I’m getting outta here.” Next in line follows him and finds he’s chillin’ in bed playing on his guitar.
He marches to the tune of a different instrument playing.
Teenager decides he isn’t into team sports (if all your friends jumped off a bridge, wouldn’t you joint them?), his mom (with old lady hair) finds him alone in his bedroom.
Is there a reason why someone walking away from a physical calamity would go to his bedroom and play a guitar rather than, say, go to an ice cream shop and eat a sundae?
And why is it funny that he went to his room to play the guitar?
I’m filing this under “…… and?….”
I didn’t notice the hair; it’s not the next in line.
He’s just too cool to do what everyone else does. Everyone knows that cool kids wear dark glasses and play guitar (or is it bass now?).
Playing “Another brick in the wall” I suppose.
He’s the only woke domino in a herd of sheeple.
Olivier for the win!
Spot on!
Maybe he didn’t like the political candidate on stage? This IS a domino rally after all…
He’s a non-conformist. He’d rather compose tunes in his own little world than contribute to society.
He figures there’s no point in contributing to society since he observes it to be falling down around him.
@ Arthur – “cool kids wear dark glasses” –
That’s what Calvin said:
If you examine the first panel, you’ll see that there are two tiles that add up to 5, and four tiles that add up to 7. In fact, two of those “seven” tiles are identical: they are both made up of “three” and “four.”
There’s not enough uniqueness; too many people want to be just like everybody else. The rebel tile, however, prefers not to be like everybody else and makes the decision to pursue music — much to the chagrin of his mom.
But in panel 3 and 4 he’s not a rebel. He just sees what going to happen. And even if he is a rebel… why is it supposed to be funny?
woozy: In panel 5, the other dominos look surpised that he’s leaving, and not surprised that a bunch of them have been knocked over. I don’t think he’s the only domino to realize what’s going to happen. He’s the only domino who doesn’t want to participate. That’s what makes him a rebel.
I guess it’s just supposed to be funny because you don’t expect a domino to be a rebel. It doesn’t really work for me, though.
It’s Derek
I think that’s it.
Or Fats.
“I guess it’s just supposed to be funny because you don’t expect a domino to be a rebel. ”
Why the heck not? In fact, if you are going to have a joke about dominos being knocked over, isn’t that *exactly* what you’d expect? Or does the cartoonist think people will be going to his cite expecting a documentary and be surprised that its actually is a joke instead.
woozy: You asked why it’s “supposed to be funny,” not why it “is funny.” It seems to me your complaint at this point is just that it’s not funny – you’re recognizing there’s a twist in the story, but saying that it’s not good because you already expect a twist in a joke anyway, so it needs to be a better one than this. Like I said, I didn’t find this comic funny, so I can’t defend the actual funniness.
” if you are going to have a joke about dominos being knocked over”
Domininoes like to like up, and expect, or at least accept, that they’re going to be knocked over.
Today is typo day. Dominoes like to line up. Rubber baby buggy bumpers. Rubber…
winter wallaby. fair enough. But I’m just kind of dumbfounded. Humor, even bad and predictably humor, assumes the twist be a twist. Simple anthropomorphism is not enough (at least not the second time it is done). A domino walking away from a falling chain is a bit like a tree in a public park saying “Ow, you just stepped on my root” to a passing pedestrian. Now it is true you don’t expect a tree to say “Ow, you just stepped on my root”. But if one does… well, it doesn’t really impress you in any way.
“Now it is true you don’t expect a tree to say ‘Ow, you just stepped on my root’. But if one does… well, it doesn’t really impress you in any way.”
How jaded you must be, to be so utterly unimpressed by a talking tree.
Hey, man, he just like refuses to be a cog in the machine, man!
“How jaded you must be, to be so utterly unimpressed by a talking tree.”
oh, I’d be impressed. I just wouldn’t think it was funny.
And having a talking tree in a story or a a cartoon is not the same as a talking tree in reality.
Of course, if it were a tree in a cartoon I’d be expecting it to say something funny so I wouldn’t be expecting it to say “Ow, you stepped on my root”. So you could say I *wasn’t* expecting that.
…. but it still wouldn’t be funny. It takes more than “you wouldn’t expect” to be funny.
Or maybe I *would* expect a tree to say “Ow, you stepped on my root” and I’d expect a domino to say “screw this” and walk away. But I’d also expect *more*. If a tree talking or a domino were truly creative that’d be acceptable, but they aren’t and once you accept a talking domino or a talking tree complaining about root stepping or walking away from a domino chain is the *least* you’d expect.
I’m really getting the impression that the Buni cartoonist bar of what an audience would expect is becoming surreally and unfathomably low.
Professional cartoonists have an editor at the syndicate whose job it is to point out, and reject for publication, the cartoons that don’t turn out funny. Self-published webcomics don’t have that.
Editors are writers who can’t consistently produce publishable material on deadline. Most of them know this. A good editor’s job is to make the editee look good, by producing the best possible work as close as possible to the drop-dead deadline; when it’s done well it’s invisible. People only notice editing when it is done poorly.
This quality of editing is similar to IT… nobody thinks about the IT staff when everything is working well and all the IT resources are available, with good response times.
Have you ever set up a long string of dominos and set them falling, only to have the fall-progression interrupted by a gap you hadn’t seen before?
You don’t remember the gap. Maybe it was caused by a domino that walked away. If so, where is that domino now? What could he be doing?
This is HIS story.
He’s the Mario Savio of dominoes!
J-L has an A+ theory that explains my entire childhood…