The life of Stephen in his very own comic named Hiccups - Day Four of University

Ok, so I’m not one of those who religiously follow Marvel or DC, and possess a huge collection of rarities under my bed, which I worship on a nightly basis. And neither am I a heavy follower of web comics who has about 50 websites saved in my favourites dedicated purely to them. But in terms of creating them and enjoying the simplicity behind them... I love it.

The thing I found, when writing them, is that you’re capable of very particular types of humour that would otherwise be impossible in other circumstances. You’re working in silence, with still images. Now I agree, that would normally be a recipe for one of the dullest things to have to endure. However with comics, I find that it’s these very traits which allow you so much scope in terms of jokes and humour. You can play around with sight gags, and punch lines are sometimes much stronger when delivered in the final panel of a strip (no worries about timing there!). The strangest thing, as demonstrated by today’s batch of comics... you can sometimes get humour without actually seeing anything happen at all.

The imagination is pretty awesome. It has the ability to create amazing stories out of a small collection of cues. Feed it a few hints and it makes its own conclusions. And when it comes to comics, this ability can be amazingly powerful (and make the writer’s job a bit easier). Using a sight gag, you don’t need to explain what’s going on. In fact, you sometimes don’t even need words. The picture itself tells you everything you need to know, which hopefully, is something quite funny.

It’s the same with the dialogue. What is perhaps a great advantage with comics is that you don’t need to ‘linger’ after a punch line. The comic panels run out and it’s cut cleanly. A lot of jokes in comics have trouble translating to Animation for this very reason. A line is delivered... but you normally have to let it sink in when it’s animated. In most comedies, you normally find that after a particularly sharp line, there’s always a little “sinking in” period, which might be masked by recorded laughter, or where the recipient of the line has to react in some way (normally a sigh or Face-palm). Either way, the characters normally just have to freeze and stare or react slightly. The risk, of course, is doing too much - which cuts the joke short and doesn’t give people a chance to enjoy it. They’re half way through laughing but the plot has already moved on. But on the flip-side, linger it and the joke falls horribly flat, as there’s nothing waiting on the other side of it.

So I guess that’s why I love these comics. Whilst they might appear more restrictive when so many other mediums are now readily available - I find that the structure is actually quite liberating when it comes to forging jokes. And so I feel that today’s offering are a testament to this. I honestly couldn’t see any of these jokes working well in an animated or sitcom setting.

But enough of my views... let’s get to the funny stuff!

The comic strips in this hub have all been hand drawn and originally thought of, if you wish to use any of the comic strips, please ask for permission.