Be that as it may, HE’ll be the only one able to wear his lampshade.
Showing up at a formal party thinking it was a costume party, a standard cartoon joke. Only with lamps.
Not a costume party but a casual event and he came overdressed.
This is another one of those “I want to be just like ‘The Far Side’” comics. Larson’s panels weren’t always perfect, but his style of humor is easy to imitate, and extremely difficult to improve upon. This example doesn’t even come close.
Kilby, yes, I remember one in particular where a professor was at a conference and realized he had forgotten his duck.
But what did the invitation really say? For it to work as a joke, you ought to be able to figure out what was said such that the other people brought the apparently correct desk and angle-poise lamps. I don’t know and I don’t know that the cartoonist knows.
Later tonight, he’ll have a dream where his lamp just has a naked bulb. Then, he’ll suddenly realize that not only does his lamp not have any shade on it, but it’s a midterm and he forgot to study.
@narmitaj: As near as I can tell, everyone else has a “Desk Lamp”, not a “Decorative Lamp”. I’m saying it’s funny, or that it makes any sense, I”m just saying…
My immediate reaction was just like narmitaj’s.
But actually that wasn’t quite my first reaction, since I happened to read the caption first. (I sometimes look at the art first or the caption, I don’t know if there are any particular reasons.) From the caption, I was expecting the error to be in
“lamp”; and when the drawing showed that it was an error about “decorative” instead, I struggled with that in the way narmitaj describes.
But then again, maybe that shift of expectation is supposed to be like the joke?
Everyone else brought a business casual desk lamp. He brought a decorated art lamp.
Did the cartoonist “hang a lampshade” on the comic to point out the absurdity of the situation? :-)
Comics I Don't Understand 
Be that as it may, HE’ll be the only one able to wear his lampshade.
Showing up at a formal party thinking it was a costume party, a standard cartoon joke. Only with lamps.
Not a costume party but a casual event and he came overdressed.
This is another one of those “I want to be just like ‘The Far Side’” comics. Larson’s panels weren’t always perfect, but his style of humor is easy to imitate, and extremely difficult to improve upon. This example doesn’t even come close.
Kilby, yes, I remember one in particular where a professor was at a conference and realized he had forgotten his duck.
But what did the invitation really say? For it to work as a joke, you ought to be able to figure out what was said such that the other people brought the apparently correct desk and angle-poise lamps. I don’t know and I don’t know that the cartoonist knows.
Later tonight, he’ll have a dream where his lamp just has a naked bulb. Then, he’ll suddenly realize that not only does his lamp not have any shade on it, but it’s a midterm and he forgot to study.
@narmitaj: As near as I can tell, everyone else has a “Desk Lamp”, not a “Decorative Lamp”. I’m saying it’s funny, or that it makes any sense, I”m just saying…
My immediate reaction was just like narmitaj’s.
But actually that wasn’t quite my first reaction, since I happened to read the caption first. (I sometimes look at the art first or the caption, I don’t know if there are any particular reasons.) From the caption, I was expecting the error to be in
“lamp”; and when the drawing showed that it was an error about “decorative” instead, I struggled with that in the way narmitaj describes.
But then again, maybe that shift of expectation is supposed to be like the joke?
Everyone else brought a business casual desk lamp. He brought a decorated art lamp.
Did the cartoonist “hang a lampshade” on the comic to point out the absurdity of the situation? :-)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging