Tuesday, March 22, 2011

15 comments:

Tom Moon said...

Hah! Love the concept and setup Rick, but... isn't arguing that an accident is "An Act of God" something the INSURANCE AGENT says to get out of paying a claim?
That struck me right away so I didn't really get the joke at first. There must be some other way to phrase this so as to extract the humor from the situation.

MrGoodson2 said...

I like your instinct for breaking the plane of the panel. The elbow and briefcase are good eye guides for the panel break.Anyone who has ever tried to do single panel gags realizes it's one of the toughest composition chores for a cartoonist. I think Tom's right about the gag, but my first read without, Tom's input, I got it.

MrGoodson2 said...

I went comma crazy on that last sentence.

MrGoodson2 said...

Wow. I just read !12! Nearsighted comics I haven't read yet. Thanks for the reminder to get over to the site. My favorite was the Frankenstein recycling spokesman

Davis Chino said...

Funny!

I accepted "Act of God" on first read, but perhaps Tom & El are right.

Maybe a way around it is sub Dorothy in for the Witch, have Insurance guy telling her, "'Act of God' will never hold up in a Munchkinland--I'm afraid you're liable..." or something--but maybe that angle's been done already!

Or if you want to keep the Witch, can have her (or lawyer?) say, "'Act of God' will never hold up in a Munchkin courtroom. Clearly the little girl's liable--and her dog Toto, too."

Maybe just prune it to last line and make the joke "Toto too."??

Yes--"Clearly the little girl's liable--and her her dog Toto, too."

It's a very funny cartoon--and who doesn't love Oz humor???

Davis Chino said...

--And I love those feet!

MrGoodson2 said...

Now I think the witch is right. The insurance company has to pay up.

Tom Moon said...

My online search says:

"Act of God is a legal term for events outside of human control, such as sudden floods or other natural disasters, for which no one can be held responsible."

"In the law of contracts, an act of God may be interpreted as an implied defence under the rule of impossibility: i.e, the promise is discharged because of unforeseen, naturally occurring events that were unavoidable and which would result in insurmountable delay, expense, or other material breach."

Calling an earthquake an Act of God lets the insurance company off the hook for massive disasters that would bankrupt the company, unless you specifically have earthquake insurance.

MrGoodson2 said...

A Ha!

MrGoodson2 said...

So the Witch should be saying. "Act of God my warty ass! It was that Kansas whore!"

Beata said...

ELLIS!! OMG!
Thank you for that.
I haven't laughed that hard in ages.

IMHO:
Rick's drawing + Marty's punchline = a winner

MrGoodson2 said...

Beata! Alright. I like to visualize making you laugh. I should have read Marty's post closer. He had my joke, just less vulgarly rendered. I did mine the way I did it knowing full well it was way too vulgar for Nearsighted Comics.
Marty's Witch line needs to drop Toto as a detail. The Witch just said "Your little dog too." It was just an object, didn't have a name to her. Because she's evil.

Rickart said...

Huh... I meant to post this on the cartoon's site.

This is very interesting. I was under the impression that a random act of god would be precisely the sort of thing that an insurance company is supposed to cover. I guess I don't know enough about this subject to write a gag about it.

Davis Chino said...

Rick, I think you are right...unless you're wrong.

I'm more confused than ever now!

But we love the strip--look at all the dialogue it's engendered.

Rickart said...

I get a lot of ideas where I see something on the street or on TV and I say to myself "there's a gag in there somewhere" and I file the idea away hoping it will germinate into something. Sometimes the gag comes quickly and sometimes it needs to linger for a while until I think up the "right" gag for the idea.
I've accepted that I'm not always going to get the perfect gag every time, but I'm pretty sure that I'm getting better at this. I've got another witch gag in the wings that I should post here... as I recall, I struggled with the dialog a bit more than usual on it. It will be interesting to compare the 2 cartoons.