Comedy Writing?

HGDaGr8One · Dec 18, 2011

I have my own little mature/adult cartoon on the internet and sometimes coming up with humorous adult situations can be a daunting task.

I want to be as original as possible and even that posses problems, at times. I hate thinking up an idea just to find out it has been done before. I find myself at times sampling other people's ideas and changing them to make them "my own".

I would just like to get some advice from some comedy writers on how to get my creative juices flowing. What process does a comedy writer go through to come up with funny and original material? What resources can I utilize to gain inspiration from without using somebody else's material?

RexZentah · Dec 19, 2011

Ever notice how a politician from nowhere hits the national scene as a philanderer every six months or so and then the old jokes get re-written to tell his story? Who is it now? Herman Cain jokes? Or were they Bill Clinton jokes? Or was it Ted Kennedy jokes?

Let's go through your excuses and give you a training from hell

"I want to be as original as possible and even that posses problems, at times." There is nothing original under the sun. Check out tvtropes.com HA-HA! You are going to hate yourself for going there.

On the bright side, you have an originality that will show in your work without you trying. Mine is childishness. I hate being perceived as childish and at the same time enjoy acting childishly and no one can do childish quite so well as me.

"I hate thinking up an idea just to find out it has been done before." Same thing, there's no originality and everything has been done before.

"I find myself at times sampling other people's ideas and changing them to make them "my own"." Here's your brilliance, right here. These are called switches. But as you can surmise from tvtropes, I logged in a couple thousand hours there, every idea you have is a switch.

Finally, read. The best book I have bought on humor is actually an acting book. It's called the Eight Characters of Comedy. It is a fantastic treatise on writing comedy. It takes the eight most common characters on TV sitcoms and expounds on them. Turns out those same categories work for jokes. Just as there's a bastard character, a womanizer, or a dumb guy in a sitcom, there are bastard jokes, womanizer jokes, dumb guy jokes and so on.

I find I write too many space cadet jokes, followed by logical jokes. Most people get scared away from womanizing jokes and you need some experience to get materialistic. I can, however, write bastard jokes like the worst of them.

Also, once you learn the categories, new ones will show up and that's where you might get some of that "doing what nobody else is doing feeling" but you know that's it's a trick.

Best of luck buddy. Don't try this on stage yet. You can't act like the smartest guy in the house until you can go nuts on the inevitable heckler...(the mean and clever joke put-down here deleted by moderator)

HGDaGr8One · Dec 19, 2011

RexZentah said:
Ever notice how a politician from nowhere hits the national scene as a philanderer every six months or so and then the old jokes get re-written to tell his story? Who is it now? Herman Cain jokes? Or were they Bill Clinton jokes? Or was it Ted Kennedy jokes?

Let's go through your excuses and give you a training from hell

"I want to be as original as possible and even that posses problems, at times." There is nothing original under the sun. Check out tvtropes.com HA-HA! You are going to hate yourself for going there.

On the bright side, you have an originality that will show in your work without you trying. Mine is childishness. I hate being perceived as childish and at the same time enjoy acting childishly and no one can do childish quite so well as me.

"I hate thinking up an idea just to find out it has been done before." Same thing, there's no originality and everything has been done before.

"I find myself at times sampling other people's ideas and changing them to make them "my own"." Here's your brilliance, right here. These are called switches. But as you can surmise from tvtropes, I logged in a couple thousand hours there, every idea you have is a switch.

Finally, read. The best book I have bought on humor is actually an acting book. It's called the Eight Characters of Comedy. It is a fantastic treatise on writing comedy. It takes the eight most common characters on TV sitcoms and expounds on them. Turns out those same categories work for jokes. Just as there's a bastard character, a womanizer, or a dumb guy in a sitcom, there are bastard jokes, womanizer jokes, dumb guy jokes and so on.

I find I write too many space cadet jokes, followed by logical jokes. Most people get scared away from womanizing jokes and you need some experience to get materialistic. I can, however, write bastard jokes like the worst of them.

Also, once you learn the categories, new ones will show up and that's where you might get some of that "doing what nobody else is doing feeling" but you know that's it's a trick.

Best of luck buddy. Don't try this on stage yet. You can't act like the smartest guy in the house until you can go nuts on the inevitable heckler...(the mean and clever joke put-down here deleted by moderator)

Thanks for your reply. There is nothing original under the sun? I thought as much, myself. I've noticed from my own experience in doing cartoons it is all about style, content, and decent character creation. Some independent cartoons look like the style of a kid but the jokes and situation be funny. And the content being humorous totally excuses the "crappy" art. And I'll be sure to check out tvtropes.com to see what it is about.

There's no originality and everything has been done before? I said that to a heckler and they said I was being lazy, lol. I told that silly bastard to wake up. And from that moment on I started to call the heckler, The Sleeper. And they just did not understand where I was coming from. So, I gave up trying to explain.

Switch? Never heard of what I do sometimes called that. So, switching is not a negative? I felt a little bit guilty (@ 1st) doing it, like I was cheating or something. The Eight Characters of Comedy sounds like a good read. It should help me add to my character creation process.

You write bastard jokes? Sweeeeet! My main character is a bastard

You mind throwing a few bastard jokes @ me? I haven't heard any good ones in a while. If you could that would be awesome!

Thanks for your time, Bud

Rob Lefebvre · Feb 1, 2012

Hey I had a few peices of input I thought I might throw out there.

First if you have a web comic you should post a link so we can all view it.

As far as your question about where people come up with jokes: I am not a comedy writer specifically, but from time to time I find myself coming with some bits of hilarity. I tend to take life experiences, or things that I find funny and then expound on them. Example: Elf pornography. I find that hilarious. I am not sure that it even exists, but I once saw a man spend an incredibly long time studying a book called "erotic fantasy art" at the book store. For me it is easy to imagine the back story of the man, and in that I find a joke or set up. I also find that I tend to take little bits and pieces of people I know and mix them in. Example being, say I have a room mate, and one day I find his porn collection. I am browsing through and of course find some good stuff, and than all of a sudden a certain folder catches my eye. Upon clicking on this folder I find the first and largest collection of elf pornography I have ever seen. That would be the story I made up. If i wanted to turn it into part of a stand up routine I would work on the delivery a lot more, but I find once I have the basic concept, the delivery is mostly a fun bit of fine tuning. I could also add a bit about how me and my room mate got into an arguement about which is better. A dwarf or an elf. It would be completely non-sexual and than I would later find where his bias comes from.

Sorry there was so much rambling, but that is the sort of thought process I have. I also bounce Ideas off of people I work with to see what kind of reaction I get. Hope that is what you were asking.

Ken · Feb 1, 2012

... practice. Lots of it. Also, don't limit yourself to reading adult cartoons even though that's your current focus. Sample a wide spectrum of funny stuff, including shows on TV. At the end of the day, though, it's all got to come from you. So familiarize yourself with yourself too ;-)

G'luck.

RemusShepherd · Feb 1, 2012

HGDaGr8One said:
What process does a comedy writer go through to come up with funny and original material? What resources can I utilize to gain inspiration from without using somebody else's material?

To write the comedy material I produce -- including my current project, a funny look at genocide -- I try to look at absurdities and contrasts in everyday life. Humor comes from perversion of expectations. Any situation can be made funny if you exaggerate it in the right way, or lead the audience into expecting one outcome while delivering another.

I'd suggest studying the root mechanics of humor, so that you can understand how you have been intuitively creating and selecting funny material. Once you understand how your brain has been doing it, it should be easier to make your own humor out of any subject you care to use.

Now here's the funny part: I don't have any citations to offer you.

All that I know about humor I learned from practice and from snippets of articles and interviews with funny people. I don't know of any book specifically on humor theory. But I know they exist. (Wikipedia lists several here, if that helps, but I can't give any specific recommendations.)

To be funny all the time you have to think clinically about it, at least in my experience. It comes naturally to some, and to others after enough practice.

Cliffhanger · Feb 2, 2012

The originality isn't in the idea, but in the expression.

RexZentah · Feb 3, 2012

I just met a New Yorker Magazine cartoonist. Without dropping names, he liked my stuff and gave me some pointers. He's a newbie there and he said he was interested in how big-time cartoonists develop style.

Here's my opinion on style, "You know all of those mistakes in your work that nobody mentions? That's your style." It's stuff you create without knowing while trying to make a deadline, paying the rent or showing up a competitor.

The bastard stuff...here's link to the master George Carlin putting a heckler in place...adult content...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGTr9LXxXvQ

It seems very brutal, but if you aren't ready to mop up the floor with a heckler then don't go on stage.

Also, on being a bastard, you just tell the truth. Make fun of how someone is dressed, acts, aspires to be, and rub the fact in their face that they'll never attain what they want. It's no way to make friends and an easy way to get barred from this forum, fired from your day job, and to get punched in the mouth. And a great way to write the bastard comedic character, think Louie from the tv sitcom Taxi.

HGDaGr8One · Feb 16, 2012

Rob Lefebvre said:
Hey I had a few peices of input I thought I might throw out there.

First if you have a web comic you should post a link so we can all view it.

As far as your question about where people come up with jokes: I am not a comedy writer specifically, but from time to time I find myself coming with some bits of hilarity. I tend to take life experiences, or things that I find funny and then expound on them. Example: Elf pornography. I find that hilarious. I am not sure that it even exists, but I once saw a man spend an incredibly long time studying a book called "erotic fantasy art" at the book store. For me it is easy to imagine the back story of the man, and in that I find a joke or set up. I also find that I tend to take little bits and pieces of people I know and mix them in. Example being, say I have a room mate, and one day I find his porn collection. I am browsing through and of course find some good stuff, and than all of a sudden a certain folder catches my eye. Upon clicking on this folder I find the first and largest collection of elf pornography I have ever seen. That would be the story I made up. If i wanted to turn it into part of a stand up routine I would work on the delivery a lot more, but I find once I have the basic concept, the delivery is mostly a fun bit of fine tuning. I could also add a bit about how me and my room mate got into an arguement about which is better. A dwarf or an elf. It would be completely non-sexual and than I would later find where his bias comes from.

Sorry there was so much rambling, but that is the sort of thought process I have. I also bounce Ideas off of people I work with to see what kind of reaction I get. Hope that is what you were asking.

Here is a link to my lil' crappy cartoon channel on YouTube,
http://www.youtube.com/user/hgdagr8one?feature=mhee

To comment on your reply. I agree, over exaggeration is a way to go especially in comedic situations as in cartoons and the not. Thanks for that bit of advice.

HGDaGr8One · Feb 16, 2012

Ken said:
... practice. Lots of it. Also, don't limit yourself to reading adult cartoons even though that's your current focus. Sample a wide spectrum of funny stuff, including shows on TV. At the end of the day, though, it's all got to come from you. So familiarize yourself with yourself too ;-)

G'luck.

Practice always makes perfect. I love all kinds of comedy and take it how I can get it. Thanks for the reply.

HGDaGr8One · Feb 16, 2012

RemusShepherd said:
To write the comedy material I produce -- including my current project, a funny look at genocide -- I try to look at absurdities and contrasts in everyday life. Humor comes from perversion of expectations. Any situation can be made funny if you exaggerate it in the right way, or lead the audience into expecting one outcome while delivering another.

I'd suggest studying the root mechanics of humor, so that you can understand how you have been intuitively creating and selecting funny material. Once you understand how your brain has been doing it, it should be easier to make your own humor out of any subject you care to use.

Now here's the funny part: I don't have any citations to offer you. All that I know about humor I learned from practice and from snippets of articles and interviews with funny people. I don't know of any book specifically on humor theory. But I know they exist. (Wikipedia lists several here, if that helps, but I can't give any specific recommendations.)

To be funny all the time you have to think clinically about it, at least in my experience. It comes naturally to some, and to others after enough practice.

A funny look at genocide? That sounds interesting! I wouldn't mind checking that out. Looking at absurdities and contrasts in everyday life is a way to go. I agree, humor does comes from perversion of expectations. Over exaggerated situations are always funny a lot of comedians do it. I love when one is lead to believe one thing and it ends up being something else that is classic. I need practice at doing that I think it is a clever approach.

I'll look into studying the root mechanics of humor, for the reasons stated above. I already make my own humor out of any subject I care to use. It would just be awesome to have like minded people to bounce ideas and jokes off of.

Practice is key and I love reading about the arts and what different artist do. I'll check out Wikipedia's list thanks for the link. Thanks for the help with the resources.

Comedy comes natural to me I just have brain farts every now and again. Sometimes I have trouble with direction.

HGDaGr8One · Feb 16, 2012

Cliffhanger said:
The originality isn't in the idea, but in the expression.

Touche, Sir...touche.

HGDaGr8One · Feb 16, 2012

RexZentah said:
I just met a New Yorker Magazine cartoonist. Without dropping names, he liked my stuff and gave me some pointers. He's a newbie there and he said he was interested in how big-time cartoonists develop style.

Here's my opinion on style, "You know all of those mistakes in your work that nobody mentions? That's your style." It's stuff you create without knowing while trying to make a deadline, paying the rent or showing up a competitor.

The bastard stuff...here's link to the master George Carlin putting a heckler in place...adult content...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGTr9LXxXvQ

It seems very brutal, but if you aren't ready to mop up the floor with a heckler then don't go on stage.

Also, on being a bastard, you just tell the truth. Make fun of how someone is dressed, acts, aspires to be, and rub the fact in their face that they'll never attain what they want. It's no way to make friends and an easy way to get barred from this forum, fired from your day job, and to get punched in the mouth. And a great way to write the bastard comedic character, think Louie from the tv sitcom Taxi.

Meeting a New Yorker Magazine cartoonist would be awesome! I would love to pick his brain. He liked your stuff and gave you some pointers? Where can I see your stuff?

So, basically style is what you make it. I didn't see the way i do my cartoons as a style, per say. I just always wanted to make cartoons and learned about the process and do it.

Thanks for the bastard references. My main character in my cartoon would be considered a bastard then.

Leroy · Oct 5, 2012

great thread

Comedy Writing?

Ass kicker