Any great comic strip cartoonist will agree that “good writing can save poor art - but good art cannot help bad writing“. This is true and you can’t get around it.

Many cartoonists become cartoonists because they love to draw. The instant appeal of comic strips is the art. As a visual medium, it’s the first thing you notice. But the writing is what makes or breaks a strip. You have to think of yourself as a writer before an illustrator.

Do you tell people you “write” comic strips or “draw” comic strips?

The two basic types of humor found in comic strips are situational and character-driven. What does that mean? Simply put, situational humor comes from what happens in a comic strip. Character-driven humor relates to how the characters react to what happens.

Situational is where it starts. This is the basic premise of any comic strip, the core of the cartoonist’s idea. The zinger in the last panel is based on what happens before it. A situational zinger takes the standard form of any joke - the setup, then the punchline. The focus is on what happens or what is said. This is the most common type of humor in comics.

Character-driven zingers are more complex, taking the humor to the next level. This is only possible with well-developed characters. Situations becomes secondary. The cartoonist can place the characters in almost any situation and know how they will act and the humor comes from those actions. This doesn’t make writing a funny zinger any easier but the humor is derived from a more personal experience, for the cartoonist and the reader. The best and most successful comic strips reach this level of humor.

This isn’t to say situational zingers are bad humor. Sometimes they are brilliantly hilarious! They work best in strips without reoccurring characters or at least ones that have that gag-a-day mentality. Where situational zingers falter is when the strip is character-driven but the humor is not. This unfortunately is common as it is more difficult (or just more rare) to write good character-driven zingers than think up funny situations. How do you spot this? When you read a comic strip, ask yourself whether it matters which character did or said what. Or if it matters whether it took those specific characters to tell that specific joke. If it doesn’t matter, the humor is situational. I think most strips strive to achieve character-driven humor but end up situational. The result is often a flat zinger.

Try asking yourself these questions when you next read the funny pages. Are they situational or character-driven? Which ones make you laugh most?

I recently posted about getting to know characters in comic strips. What happens when you know them is that you can predict how they will react in certain situations, especially the ones they’ve been in before. Like when Calvin steps up to the door and announces that he is home while Hobbes is poised on the inside ready to pounce. The situation is predictable and yet it’s repeatedly funny! Or at least it’s supposed to be.

This predictability is quite an interesting dichotomy. One thing about humor in general is the use of the element of surprise which is what happens or is said in the last panel of a comic strip. That’s the way it works. There’s always a punchline, a zinger at the end. But the more you know a character, the more you understand the nature of the final panel even before you get there. Yet it’s funnier that way. Why? Perhaps it reminds you of the first time you laughed at that similar situation. I think it’s like listening to a friend tell a funny story that you’ve heard several times, and maybe the details have changed a little over numerous tellings, but you still like the outcome nonetheless. It’s not only the zinger that tickles your ribs, rather you find humor in watching a friend go through the motions for a laugh. Well known characters do that in comic strips.

Have you ever started laughing before you got to the last panel?