Normally my ideas don't make me crack up or laugh most of the time since I'm usually expecting the punch-line, but this one kept me giggling inside the whole time I was doing it. Somehow the idea of telling someone something so silly as sticking a bug zapper up their butt was intrinsically funny to me. Probably because I imagine that other person walking out of the room and then hearing a loud *BZZZAATTT!* and them yelling "ow!". Possibly because I've seen the aftermath of someone doing stupid things with a bug zapper such as trying to lick it ( Some of the people I know aren't too bright. ).
Chances are good because it amuses me so, it's either absolutely hilarious to other people or just misses altogether. But that's a risk I'm willing to take. Jokes are a kind of thing that really only result in a few different sorts of reactions. They can crack up, find it only mildly amusing, groan, be offended at it or ,worst of all, simply sit there and do nothing. As Gary Larson said a couple times through his career ( don't act like you didn't know he's a major influence on me. ), that last one is the most terrifying to a cartoonist. Because not only did you fail to make them laugh, you totally didn't even make a connection with them. I never quite understood the idea until I started creating my own work. Now I fully appreciate how nervous it's possible to become that people just aren't going to get it when you put something up. I think it's a major fear for a lot of humor writers that they're just not going to make anyone laugh someday. The best you can hope for when you screw it up though is that tomorrow your batting average will be a bit better.
Anyway, I'm going to stop going on about the whole "art" of joke telling thing before people's eyes begin to pop out of their sockets or something. I will be back tomorrow and I hope you will be too. Remember, watch out for those bug zappers. They hurt.
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