Mike Brinker

Frumpy Funnies

Relating to my thesis indirectly...

I try and read the funnies section of the newspaper as often as I can, snatching it up at rare times when I find myself in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do. Having read quite a variety of strips from across the country (each newspaper runs different strips mind you, a fact I hadn't realized until late) and very few, if any have ever made me laugh out loud or chuckle or even smirk besides the mainstream ones that we all know and love. Examples: Everyone loves Calvin and Hobbes, and so do I. I also like Fox Trot and the Far Side. But that's about the end of the list for the good ones, or the ones I continually come back to for a good laugh.

One comic strip sorta escaped me however, and that was Frumpy the Clown by Judd Winnick. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran it for about 2 weeks and then lost it back during my days in highschool. I was VERY disappointed to say the least, as I have never laughed so hard at a clown scuba diving in the toilet, only to freak out the mother figure.

I have since consulted the almighty Google (or "the Oracle" as Todd likes to call it) and also Amazon and have found two published collections that I am drooling over at the moment. Here are the covers that speak a thousand laughs...

Freaking Out the Neighbors

and

The Fat Lady Sings

So why did I post these? Well, there is a clown in this, but not just any clown. In fact, he really isn't a clown at all. He is just painted that way. I feel his actions are extremely honest with the world and the people around him, and that he is only perceived that way. This is important to my thesis because it sort of forces me to look at what I am doing with my characters in a different light. It is a game, and it isn't based in storytelling, but the way we perceive a character is often largely defined by how they look. Perhaps some subtle changes to the animations of the characters that I am putting into the game might be in order. Definitely something interesting to ponder.