Bringing the Ha-Ha

When working in a comedic vein, I tend to employ a blitzkrieg approach. If I think something's funny, it's in. If I think someone else will think it's funny, it's in. If I think someone else MIGHT think it's funny, it's in. Basically, if I can conceive of ANYONE, ANYWHERE having the minutest of smiles tug at their lips when reading a bit, odds are it's going in.

It's not a great approach, parrtly because I've got a superhuman sense of humour and can find something to laugh about in almost anything--a tendency which almost got me punched out in 2002 when I told a friend with family in New York that if I gave it a little effort, I could find the lighter side to 9/11. The ensuing argument pretty much defined the concept of "too soon" for me, though the idea of an appropriate time to make light of something doesn't really make sense to Mr. Bleak, here. I still get a giggle out of the dead cop's brother who said on television that his sibling "died doing what he loved." Which prompted the question "He loved bleeding?"

Anyway. In one of life's little synchronicities, today I came across two examples of laugh-out-loud funny subtractive comedy. Well, they made me laugh out loud anyway. And then I coughed. And then I almost choked. And then I coughed some more. And now I've got a sore throat. And I'm feeling nauseous, but I don't think that's related.

The first, Sesame Bleepin' Street, comes from Christopher Bird's generally quite entertaining blog, Mightygodking.

The second has been making the rounds of the various blogs I read, so I'm not sure where I saw it first. It's called Garfield Minus Garfield. Basically, someone with arguably way too much time on their hands is going through Garfield strips and photoshopping Garfield out of them. The results are surreal, sometimes reading like the bleakest PEANUTS strips as read by someone experiencing a bad acid trip. If you thought Jon Arbuckle had a miserable existence with Garfield around, wait'll you see what it's like for him without a fat, joke-cracking cat...

Laughing is good. Coughing, choking, and wanting to vomit, not so much, but I'm not complaining. Much.

A