Humor in Improv and Comics
I have been taking improv classes recently, and I've also been reading some of the holy books of improvisation ("Truth in Comedy" by Close, Halpern and Johnson, and "Impro" by Keith Johnstone). Additionally, I've been making a comic on the internet.
Good improv is (or can be) hysterical. Well executed comics are (or can be) hysterical. One might well have figured that both tickle the funny bone in the same way. That is, that there is this single talent of being funny, and if you apply it to a comic, you get a funny comic, and if you apply it while improving, you get funny improv. This is not so.
I realized this must be the case when I noticed that I was engaging entirely different processes when I tried to script the comic from what went on in the improv classes. It wasn't that both start with the same thing, and then in scripting, one refines and revises the raw humorous nugget. I mean, one could create that way, but it wasn't how I was creating. So I've been thinking about comedy and how the comedic aspects of a work are shaped by the medium. Some of these thoughts tie in to thoughts I have about continuity, and serialized storytelling, but I will try to focus primarily on the issues involving humor.
David Malki !, The Comic Strip Doctor, writes that "humor is based on the reversal of expectations." This is a good observation, and sets up well the distinction I want to talk about. If humor is based on reversal of expectations, then what is funny will be sensitive to what the expectations are. And some expectations come along with the medium. Before I get too far into that, I do want to augment Malki !'s claim. I think that humor is based on the reversal of the right expectations. Some expectations generate humor when subverted, while others impede humor when subverted.
The example of this that springs to my mind readily comes from improv, but examples of it are certainly not limited to improv. There is a guideline in improvisation which tells performers, roughly, that there should not be secrets from the audience. I was at a show (at the Upright Citizen's Brigade theatre) where the scene involved one actor, as a musician, talking to the manager of the venue. The musician said something like, "I've just come from the trailer, and its obvious you didn't read my rider." A rider is, I believe, the collection of additional stipulations beyond the standard contract that are specific to a particular individual/group. If one is in a band that uses pyrotechnics, there may be some specific parts of the contract that are attached to the normal contract covering liability, etc. Some bands are well known for having obscure clauses in their riders, such as a request for a bowl of skittles with all the green skittles removed. While some bands might be legitimately eccentric, others use clauses like that as a quick indication of whether or not the management of the venue paid attention to the rider, since, often times, the rider contains very important conditions (relevant to the health/safety of the band). Many audience members thought of riders like those when the line was uttered. Immediately, they began to wonder what the rider could possibly be. A few more lines went by with no one making explicit what the rider was. People in the audience started building up expectations. The longer the clause remained unspoken, the funnier it would eventually have to be in order for the audience not to feel let down. In fact, it became an almost impossible task to come up with something that was good enough to merit the amount of forced anticipation. In the actual scene, the other performers actually turned the failure to be explicit into a game, by making comments about how curious they were about what the clause could be; highlighting the increasing expectations and intentionally building it up to play off of the lack of explication.
I bring that up because it is not enough to just subvert expectations. One has to surpass some expectations, meet others, and reverse the correct ones. Now, if you are doing a comic strip (as opposed to a comic-book format) there is (usually) an expectation of a punchline. That is to say, when I read a gag-a-day comic, I expect for there to be a gag each day. Usually this is a punchline. And this is where reversal of expectations comes in. The content of the punchline should be unexpected. Ideally it would be unexpected, and clever, so as to not only startle, but also to impress. On the other side of things, punchlines are poison to improv. This is because a punchline is also a blackout point. That is, it is an ending. So, gag-a-day comics are looking for punchlines, improv avoids them. It's one of the fundamental differences between stand up comedy and improv. The advantage for improvers (highlighted by the above story of what happens when they lose this advantage) is that there is not a built in expectation of a punchline. There is no structural point (generally) where someone can say, "oh, the funny part is coming up right now." And that makes it easier. Because the things that are funny don't have to jump over the bar of raised expectations to please the audience, they just have to be funny.
At the same time, comics can play with this. I think Achewood is an awesome illustration of this. When I started reading Achewood, I was expecting punchlines. It looked like the strip was structured so it would set up a gag, heighten the gag, and then hit it home with a punchline. This is partially because of the number of panels and their structure, because of my expectations about comics generally, and probably a host of other factors. But as becomes immediately obvious, the punchlines aren't punchlines in any traditional sense. At first I thought maybe I was missing it. Like there was a gag but it was going over my head. Now I think there is a gag, but that the gag is playing on the expectation of a punchline. What is important is that this isn't a situation of a failed punchline, (though, a comic based around cleverly delivering poor punchlines could be made humorous), it isn't actually an attempt to provide a punchline. I don't mean to be generalizing across every Achewood strip, by the way, just noting that it is a recurring feature of Achewood.
What I think is most interesting is that these expectations arise from the structure of the creation and from our experiences. A four panel comic (based around gags) needs to articulate the gag in the final panel. If it sets up the gag in the first two, and hits it home in the third, instead of the fourth, something will feel off. The comic crescendos across the panels, and ultimately needs to peak as it ends. Since an improvised scene doesn't have a set time limit, or the same sort of explicit structural cues, the audience is less able to anticipate the jokes. They arrive unexpectedly, are heightened and played with, and (ideally) the scene ends when the humor has peaked.
In the comic, then, the strategy is relatively clear; one needs to determine the joke or gag, and then structure the writing around arriving at it. Here is an example from Starslip Crisis. I selected this strip because it illustrates the idea fairly straightforwardly, not because it is a representative sample of Starslip or anything like that. In this strip, Vanderbeam (curator/captain of starship museum) notices a variety of cables patched around the ship. The first two panels are Vanderbeam's discovery of what appears to be an unsightly mess. He transitions from worry to frustration, and in the third panel, to exasperation, as he instructs Mr. Jinx (one of the crew members) to clean it up. (I apologize for talking through the comic, but, I figure, hey, if some people can't see it for whatever reason, they might still want to know what I'm talking about). Jinx's reply is that Xxxyyy, a visiting artist set up the wires as part of her new artwork. Vanderbeam immediately revises his position from frustration to adoration. And, not merely a polite verbal compliment, so as not to offend, or to keep up appearances, but a total change in outlook. The basic gag is that Vanderbeam's aesthetic evaluation of something is radically altered by finding out that it was originated by someone who he thinks is an artistic genius, rather than revising his opinion of the artistic genius on the basis of seeing a work which he thinks is unsightly. The comic opens with establishing his displeasure, heightens the displeasure (he doesn't just ask Jinx what is going on, he orders him to take the wires down), and then, when it is revealed that his displeasure is at odds with his beliefs about Xxxyyy's skills as an artist, he immediately revises his outlook.
I want to note two things. The first is that I want to apologize to Kris Straub for a belabored overanalysis of that particular gag, since nothing sucks the life out of a joke more than detailed explanation of its structure. The second is that I chose that strip precisely because the gag was straightforward and relatively simple. He is capable of, and his comic often embodies, comedy that is a great deal more complex, varied, and interesting, so if that particular strip isn't your cup of tea, don't write off Starslip as a result (I mean, beyond the nuance and variety to his comedy, there is also the overall storytelling; the ability to progress interesting story arcs with developing characters is dificult by itself, and the fact that Straub can do it so well while punctuating each strip with a gag is hugely impressive).
Right now is when I am tempted to branch off into discussion of plot and continuity, instead of focusing on humor, but I will control myself, and save those thoughts for another post.
Del Close, et. al. named their improv book "Truth in Comedy" for a reason. They claim (and rightfully so) that the comedy in improvisation arises from honest responses on the part of the performers. The more bizarre or crazy something in the scene is, the more committed to the reality of that scene the improvisers must be for it to be humorous. What is humorous is that people are reacting in an honest way to the bizarre things going on. One form of honest reaction is for the bizarre thing to be incorporated into one's worldview. That is, to have an ideology for your character that has principled acceptance of the bizarre element. This is not just playing a crazy character, but playing a character who is reasonable in accepting something bizarre because of some (perhaps false) core beliefs. During one practice, we were doing a scene in which one character was an abysmally bad (and dangerous) chef, who put Lemon Pledge into one of her recipes. The person playing her husband was about to knowingly eat the concoction. This is bizarre. If the husband had no reason for knowingly eating it, then the whole scene is taking place in crazyland, and it's just bizarre. If the husband is considering eating it because his wife threatened to leave him if he didn't show he trusted and loved her by eating his cooking, then there is some method to the madness. The husband doesn't have to be outright crazy, in this case, he just has to love her enough to suffer some discomfort and harm for her. So, that's one way to give an honest reaction; play a character with a method to their madness. The other is to treat the bizarre as bizarre. If someone is acting crazily, confront their craziness. I was watching one scene at a UCB show in which a character was concerned that his assistant had tampered with a donut before delivering it to him. The character was going to great lengths to find out whether the donut had been tampered with (including planting it at a crime scene so that the police would take it into evidence). At one earlier point, he had been asking another character in the scene how he might go about finding out whether the donut was tainted, and the other character turned to him and said, "You know, if I had any questions about a donut, any questions at all, I'd just throw it out." And it was hysterically funny. In part, the deadpan delivery, but mostly the reminder that this guy was going to huge lengths to investigate the purity of a single sixty cent donut, rather than just, say, buying a new donut.
The humor that arises in improv is often accidental discovery. Very little of the humor from improv would translate well, or directly, into a scripted comic format. Because, if the gag one is going to go for is the above donut gag, one needs to set it up correctly. One needs to ensure that the right exposition and setup are built in to the script, but, one also needs to make sure that the punchline isn't telegraphed. One would also need to work in the necessary misdirection (either explicit misdirection or just making sure that the joke is not too obviously built up). And even then, there is a question of whether the inherent build up in a scripted comic will raise the bar to high for that gag.
In closing, I want to talk about a couple more specific examples of how these things play out in webcomics. First, let's look at a strip of Malki !'s "Wondermark", the latest one (at the time of writing this post). In this comic, a young child inquires about why she did not receive coal for Christmas. She does not seem pleased at the fact that she got actual presents instead of coal, which is unusual. Immediately, one expects that she had some reason to desire coal, since her behavior is the opposite of what is expected. Malki's strip uses actually clipped art that is in the public domain, meaning that it often has a very period feel to it. Not even always a specific period, but usually something like, "definitely in the past." However, at times there are also contemporary references, so one who is familiar with the strip does not find a certain sort of anachronism unusual in the strip. The gag in that strip is the revelation of why she wanted the coal; apparently to aid the functioning of her steampunk robotic companion, Steamovak. For various reasons, I certainly didn't expect a coal-burning automaton to be the explanation for the girl's desire. What Malki ! did here was to generate an expectation which he then fulfilled in an unexpected way. We immediately think the girl has a reason for wanting coal, and we come to expect that we will find this reason out in the strip. When we reach the second panel, and have not yet seen that explanation we realize that the explanation will be the punchline (or a key part of the punchline), and raise our expectations. More than an explanation, we now need an explanation better than the first few that spring to our minds. By 'better' I mean one that is more interesting and unusual, without undermining its reasonability as an explanation. This strip was well executed comedy precisely because it set up some very clear expectations, and met them in an inventive and unpredictable way.
My last illustration is from my favorite webcomic, Killer Robots from Space. Adam Greengard, author of KRfS (and the also excellent but no longer available "No Outlet") is a comic genius. Gil Pellaeon, the webcomicker, wrote an excellent review of Killer Robots, in which he discusses the relevance of the idea of the Infinite Canvas to KRfS (that review is highly recommended reading, by the way). One of the brilliant things about the comic is that Greengard's format is variable length (or width, depending on what measurement you are talking about). He arranges the panels horizontally, and uses however many he feels necessary. Gil comments on this, saying, "Greengard allows each Killer Robots strip to run as long as it needs to run. He never worries about trying to set up a joke in three or four panels, he never has to be concerned with 'fitting something in'...[he] gets to wrap his panels around however he wants his conversations to proceed."
In the most recent installment of KRfS, two of the titular robots are conversing about the toothpaste one of them recently purchased. There are ten panels of set up. Or, rather, it seems to be 1 panel of set up and 9 panels of heightening. Then there is a pair of punchlines (panels 11 and 12 respectively). Panels 7 and 8 also have their own little humorous divergence, but the fact that the 9 panels of mystery are there, taking up space without answering the question of what type of toothpaste was so astonishing, raises our expectations of what kind of toothpaste this might be. Even if you aren't yourself the sort of ironic shopper who buys the occaisional consumer good on the basis of it being absurd, you can identify with the astonishment at the array of such seemingly absurd products as green ketchup, peanutbutter and jelly singles (like Kraft singles, but made from PB&J instead of cheese, to accelerate sandwich making. And the new flavors available of various goods often border on insanity. Nothing against the taste or quality of the product, but the idea of "Diet Vanilla Black Cherry Dr. Pepper" just seems totally overboard.
So we see the robot talking about 'krazy' toothpaste flavors, and our mind begins racing. I think I saw lemon flavored toothpaste in a store once. I'm sure that's not the weirdest flavor I've seen. I immediately identify with the exasperated "what will those crazy marketing folks think of next." And, you know its going to be a good (as in zany) flavor, when you see 9 panels of buildup. One imagines that the punchline flavor is something that sounds so crazy no one would ever buy or sell it, like, pepercorn and parsley or something, but that if you were to google it, you'd find, sure enough, that such a flavor does exist. I say that specifically was the expectation because anyone can just combine some unlikely choices into a crazy flavor and say it was the flavor, but the humor needs to come from the fact that such a flavor could exist (or, really, that such a flavor does exist). It can't just be zany, it needs to be zany and be grounded in reality.
The revelation in panel 11 is that the flavor is mint. Mint is, perhaps the absolutely most banal flavor of toothpaste imaginable. Breaking down the expectations we had; we had an expectation that we would find out what the toothpaste was. And we did. The buildup was so extreme that, to surpass our expectations, it would have to be flavored like heroin and hound-dogs. Instead we get the opposite extreme, absolutely ordinary toothpaste. We were expecting a joke on the consumer culture that feeds flavor fetishes and experiments in bizarre gustatory experimentation. Instead we get a joke on the robot who thinks mint is a weird flavor. The last panel highlights that point by showing the robot (who we now know to be the sap, rather than the witty shopper we were initially led to believe) as completely oblivious. The tone of the other robot when he announces the flavor as "mint" could only be heard as totally unimpressed. To not be taken aback at that requires one to be extraordinarily oblivious.
You might be wondering why I sucked all the joy out of those two strips just now, and gave a belabored account of what makes them each funny (and, I should add, I offer my apologies to Malki ! and Greengard for my artless description of their skillful scripting). In seeing how those two scripts worked, its clear that our expectations play a huge role. The shape of our expectations was determined in part by knowing that both were 'episodic' (as in, the set of panels you see will constitute an episode which is itself the delivery of a gag), and knowing that the joke would be coming at the end. KRfS can extend or narrow to a large degree how much space he has to build up to a joke, but content aside, I can still tell when I am approaching the final panels based on the horizontal scroll bar in my browser. The nature of our expectations is formed in part by what we know about the format, in part by our background knowledge of the strip/sense of humor of the author, and in part by the set up.
The takeaway from all this, the thing that, if you are a creator of a gag-based comic, you might want to keep in mind when writing, is that your success and failure has pretty much everything to do with your audience's expectations. Your audience will come to your work with some expectations. The format of your work will produce some expectations. You don't have that much control over those (assuming you have a particular format/layout that you work in). What you can control is the expectations that result from what you put down in the script, and how that script will shape those expectations. Your main goal in scripting, once you know what gag you will be trying to do, is to effectively shape the reader's expectations to maximize their enjoyment of the gag. You need to lay the right foundations without making it obvious what the finished building will look like. Your craft is, to some extent, the manipulation of expectations. If your jokes are falling flat, or if you aren't getting the right response, think about how your script is serving the goal of getting people to have the right expectations.
As a final note, I have some thoughts which I won't share now, but which I would be glad to discuss with anyone who cares, on how the works of Aristotle and of David Hume relate to all this.
seven comments:
“Some of these thoughts tie in to thoughts I have about continuity, and serialized storytelling”
Do we get to know these thoughts soon, Lewis?
[William] (Email) (URL) - 29 12 06 - 17:31
Yeah, that’ll be my next 3700 word post.
Lewis Powell (Email) (URL) - 29 12 06 - 18:00
> “what will those crazy marketing folks think of next.”
It should be “krazy” with a “k”, meaning it’s extra crazy.
[William] (Email) (URL) - 30 12 06 - 16:56
You know, Lewis, I didn’t actually read this article. I read the end of it. I believe that brevity is an essential part of humor.
chenjesu - 12 09 07 - 00:34
Well, no, not really.
chenjesu - 12 09 07 - 00:35
I thought Killer Robots from Space was a pretty lame strip until I realized that you had to scroll left.
knockout08 - 12 09 07 - 00:37
I took my first lowest-rate-loans.com when I was 25 and this aided me very much. However, I require the financial loan again.
DurhamAna28 (Email) (URL) - 16 05 10 - 04:49
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