The Drawing Club

(Fogra 29) Job:11-41057 Title:Drawing club Handbook

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72 The Drawing Club

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Chapter 5: What Is Funny?

Most people tell me they aren’t sure, but they know a funny

drawing when they see it. This is about the time when the

conversation starts to sound a lot like a discussion about humor

in general. When we see or hear something funny, we know it’s

funny when we see or hear it. Right?

But that still doesn’t answer the question, so I’ll try to answer

it this way:

My good friend Erik had a roommate who was a stand-up

comedian. Young comics were always hanging around his place.

They said funny things all the time, but what made them good

comics was their ability to craft their observations into humor.

I was always fascinated when we would talk about writing

and telling jokes. They were interested in hearing how we made

decisions when we drew funny pictures. We soon realized how

similar stand-up comedy and drawing funny actually are.

The comics spent a lot of time observing real life. The people

they were observing probably didn’t think their lives were

particularly funny. The humor came from making an outside

observation—from seeing things through a filter. The filter could

be sarcasm, irony, or historical context. The comics retold their

Humor seems simple, but getting the delivery just right takes a lot of skill and practice. The Detective, colored pencil on paper, Aaron Paetz

I have had this conversation with so many people over the

years. I always end up answering the question with more

questions: “What do you think makes a drawing funny?

And if it’s funny, why—and if not, why not?”

observations as jokes, carefully crafting the words and delivery

of their observation for the big payoff—the punch line.

It’s similar in drawing. Humor seems simple, but getting the

delivery just right takes a lot of skill and practice.

At The Drawing Club, I observe artists doing funny drawings

all the time. An artist observes a character posing in a contex-

tual setting. This character and pose might not be intentionally

funny, but for this drawing, the artist chose to interpret the

character and pose through a comic filter. The drawing itself

is just a collection of orchestrated lines, tones and shapes on a

surface—but if it all works like a good joke, it is funny.

In this chapter, we will look at a lot of funny drawings. If a

drawing makes you laugh, ask yourself what makes it so funny.

Is it the proportions? Is it the shapes? Is it the facial expres-

sion? Did the artist make a serious character look ridiculous?

If you did a funny drawing, what makes it funny? If you want to

try doing a funny drawing, think about and try out some of the

different approaches in this chapter and see what you get.

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Humor seems simple, but getting the delivery just right takes a lot of skill and practice. The Detective, colored pencil on paper, Aaron Paetz

I have had this conversation with so many people over the

years. I always end up answering the question with more

questions: “What do you think makes a drawing funny?

And if it’s funny, why—and if not, why not?”

observations as jokes, carefully crafting the words and delivery

of their observation for the big payoff—the punch line.

It’s similar in drawing. Humor seems simple, but getting the

delivery just right takes a lot of skill and practice.

At The Drawing Club, I observe artists doing funny drawings

all the time. An artist observes a character posing in a contex-

tual setting. This character and pose might not be intentionally

funny, but for this drawing, the artist chose to interpret the

character and pose through a comic filter. The drawing itself

is just a collection of orchestrated lines, tones and shapes on a

surface—but if it all works like a good joke, it is funny.

In this chapter, we will look at a lot of funny drawings. If a

drawing makes you laugh, ask yourself what makes it so funny.

Is it the proportions? Is it the shapes? Is it the facial expres-

sion? Did the artist make a serious character look ridiculous?

If you did a funny drawing, what makes it funny? If you want to

try doing a funny drawing, think about and try out some of the

different approaches in this chapter and see what you get.

(Fogra 29) Job:11-41057 Title:Drawing club Handbook

#175 Dtp:204 Page:73

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