Bargaining with parking meters in South East Asia

Alas, the original joke isn't mine. A textual form appeared in Phaic Tăn in The Jetlag Travel Guide Series, which is a parody of travel guides.

When I was in Vietnam, bargaining on the street was a bit like this. Without any common language, the vendor and I passed a calculator back and forth with offers and counteroffers.

Bad Monkey

Actually only the first two frames happened in Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Flock behaviour

Inspired by managing to fool seagulls into eating apple peel at Dee Why.

Sharing etiquette

Another old joke. This was done in pencil for the course show-and-tell so to see a clearer version, click on the image.

Kangaroo whistle

I don't know if kangaroo repeller whistles actually exist, but deer repeller whistles do. The theory is that the ultrasonic tone from the whistle, which is mounted in front of the car, usually on the bumper, warns nearby deer to avoid a collision. Whether they work is debatable.

The other theme in the cartoon is the fantasy that reversing something simple, e.g. direction, polarity of battery, etc., can cause the reverse of a complex effect. I was reminded of this watching a Shaun the Sheep episode where Bitzer acquires a magical whistle that makes him master of the animals. Unfortunately he drops the whistle and reinserts the battery the wrong way around. The result was that actions got reversed. The farmer fixes the mess by grabbing the whistle and making Bitzer un-receive his whistle, restoring order to the world.

Anyway I'm also allowed to fantasise that one exists for humans. But repeller or attractor, or dual purpose? Ah, I'll leave that one ambiguous.

Hypnotising cats

Another multi-frame cartoon. This actually almost happened to me. At a friend's house I playfully waved my finger in a circle in front of her Persian cat, intoning You are getting sleepy. The cat got annoyed at following my finger with his eyes and tried to swipe me.

The cloud in the third frame is meant to indicate general mayhem but also saved me from drawing details of the mauling.

I've thrown in some extra jokes, such as the author of the book.

Pest inspector

I came up with this word joke upon seeing the words Pest Inspections on a van going past, and imagining the other meaning of inspection. I'm sure there is no such inspector, he'd go out of business pretty quickly.

Stamped parcel

The joke isn't mine, alas, I saw it years ago but have forgotten where. It's another double entendre, relying on two meanings of stamp. Anybody who has received damaged parcels has wished they could say something like this to the carrier.

Surgery and piano playing

My first attempt at a multi-frame cartoon. This is an old joke where the patient is teasing the surgeon.

Prelude and fugue in C

I'm learning to play the piano (two-handed) and I was practising Bach's Prelude and Fugue in C (BWV846). Well, just the Prelude, the Fugue is significantly harder. So I imagined an exasperated neighbour having to listen to my attempts at the Prelude too many times.

This is the first appearance of the mouse as a silent commentator. I liked him so I kept him from then on.

Spring water

I love double entendres, and this is a simple one. These days are so many products claiming purity, super powers and so forth, that I decided I'd mock them by drawing a water cooler of literally spring water.

Hot, cross bunnies

I actually invented this joke around Easter 1982. Some friends and I were chatting and the conversation got to how expensive carrots were recently because of the hot weather. Out of the blue, I commented that there would be lots of "hot, cross bunnies".

My cartoon collection

I have always wanted to draw cartoons because for some jokes they are the most engaging way to tell them. The gestalt of a drawing grabs you in a way that serial narration cannot. Also a drawing can have multiple points of interest, whereas a story usually has one punchline.

So I enrolled in a cartooning course, and I created this blog to document my progress. With some exceptions, these cartoons were not course homework but jokes that I remembered or developed.

One thing I'm learning is how to see the shapes in objects. I'm also finding that faces are the hardest to draw, particularly the eyes, which as they say, are the windows to the soul. A small change in shape or highlighting can signal a different emotion. Maybe someday I might study portraiture.

Eventually I'd like to be able to whip out a sketch pad anywhere and draw a cartoon of something that I find amusing or interesting.