Reading · Dan Piraro · RSS Amplifier

A comic of a man and woman sitting in their living room. They stare at each other with contempt. Next to the woman is a dog, to which a dialogue balloon is pointing, as if it is the dog that is speaking. It says, “If you think throwing away my ventriloquism dummy is going to stop me, you’re sadly mistaken.” We realize the angry man is “throwing his voice” to the dog instead of his missing dummy. — Comic by the author, all rights reserved

I’ve been a professional cartoonist since before the internet was a twinkle in its father’s eye, and I still marvel at the mysterious power of comics.

Laughter is a kind of mental orgasm, and just like the racy kind, to get there, a delicate balance of elements must be achieved in a certain order. It cannot be forced, and if you try too hard or at the wrong time, the opportunity vanishes faster than a squirrel surprised in the wild. The ability to make people laugh, however, is a gift even more powerful than inspiring trust in wildlife — almost no one will care that you can make friends with squirrels.

We call this gift a “sense of humor,” and it truly is far more of a sense than a science, which is why AI has so much trouble imitating it.

Me to AI: Tell me a funny joke.

ChatGPT: Why don’t skeletons fight each other? Because they don’t have the guts.

I suppose I should have mentioned I’m not in grade school.

Some of it can be learned, but creating humor takes at least a seed of natural talent. If you repeatedly throw that talent against the wall to see what sticks and what slides off like a greasy omelet in ego-crushing silence, you will initially lose a lot of friends. But you may eventually learn a few tricks that help you create stuff that sticks to the wall and gets a laugh with greater frequency.

One such trick is to use absurdity to create metaphors for everyday life. It takes some practice to get the hang of it, but once mastered, it can be very effective. (Psychedelic drugs are not a necessity, but may be of some use here.) Here’s an example.

A comic of a man passed out in a bar, with his head on the bar top. An attractive woman is sitting on the next barstool, holding a glass of wine. Between them is a ventriloquism dummy, wearing a jacket that matches that of the passed-out man. The dummy says to the woman, “Well, there goes my designated driver. Can you give us a lift?” A caption below reads: Ventriloquist pickup technique. — Comic by the author, all rights reserved

This method enables us to laugh at ourselves through a harmless, graphic surrogate, which is the definition of gag cartoons.

Cartoonists are naturally drawn to innumerable common tropes that are chock full of this potential — heaven and hell, the therapist’s couch, the Grim Reaper, and talking pets, to name but a fraction. One of my favorite tropes is ventriloquism.

A comic of two women walking with their young children in a city park. In the foreground is a man in a suit and bowtie. He smiles contentedly as he pushes an expensive stroller, which contains his ventriloquism dummy, looking exactly like him and dressed the same. As the women look on, one says, “Is it just me, or is there a point at which ventriloquism becomes creepy?” — Comic by the author, all rights reserved

Though ventriloquism as live comedy is not as common as it once was, it remains a powerful metaphor for all of our lives. The dummy is a perfect symbol of the ego, the alter-ego, and our “shadow”: the thoughts we rarely dare to utter.

An honest cartoonist will admit that they don’t always know exactly why something is funny, they just sense that it is. That is because humor, like creativity in all its fundamental forms, is not simply a product created in a factory; it is an elusive quality of human consciousness that is channeled through us (Jung’s “collective unconscious”) as much as created by us.

In all areas of creativity, we don’t always know precisely what an inspiration is or what it means; we only know that it stirs something in us that feels worth sharing.

The phenomenon of emotional support animals (which I’m all for, with the exception of dangerous predators) got me wondering if there may exist people who can only express themselves through a talking doll. Would their testimony be admissible?

A comic of a courtroom. The judge angrily says to the person in the witness box, “The witness will answer in his own voice.” The witness sits in the box with a ventriloquist’s dummy on his knee that looks identical to him. — Comic by the author, all rights reserved

When I first drew this courtroom comic, I wasn’t sure why it was funny, but it made me chuckle. (I later tried it myself in a civil trial and discovered the limits of its humor.)

Here’s a ventriloquism gag without a dummy.

A comic of Batman and Robin as they return to Wayne Manor late at night. Batman tosses his keys into a bowl near the door, as Robin puts his cape down on a sofa, and, turning to Batman, says, “Yes, it was a fun party. But for the record, I’m done with sitting on your lap so you can do your stupid ventriloquism routine.”

Many of us have felt like the sidekick of a more dominating personality, and that can make us feel like their personal dummy. Here, Robin finally stands up to his oppressor and draws a boundary. It’s a step in the right direction, and he may even find the courage to start wearing a complete pair of pants to parties.

Ventriloquism can be a terrific stand-in for romantic relationships, too.

Comic of a man in a blue tuxedo at a cocktail party. He looks to his left and is surprised to see a younger, more handsome man in a red jacket, holding a ventriloquism dummy in a blue tux that looks just like the surprised man. The dummy says, “Oh…hello, Scott…This is…uh…my friend Justin.” — Comic by the author, all rights reserved

Scott doubtless thought his “mini-me” was at home on the shelf in his closet. And where did he meet this “Justin” person, anyway?

A comic of a cocktail party in someone’s home. An angry man is carrying a ventriloquism dummy dressed identically to him and says to it as he walks determinedly away from a small group of others, “That was SO embarrassing! Why didn’t you tell me your former ventriloquist was going to be here?” Behind him is another ventriloquist with his dummy, chatting with another party attendant. — Comic by the author, all rights reserved

Running into an ex unexpectedly can be traumatic in a variety of ways. I once had a relationship with a woman who was a little taller than I and a 7th-degree black belt in karate. I always knew she could effortlessly kick my ass, but I never thought it would come to that. After a difficult breakup, however, when she saw me at a restaurant with my new girlfriend, the look she gave me verged on terrifying.

And how many of us have left a dissatisfying relationship for one that we thought would be better and completely different, only to discover we’d chosen the same person in a different meat suit?

A comic of a man wearing a black tux, seated before a large, lighted mirror in a vaudeville-style dressing room. With a stunned look on his face, he turns and reaches out to a younger man in a blue tux who is walking out the dressing room door with what is obviously the first man’s ventriloquism dummy in a black tux. The dummy says to the man in the chair, “It’s no use, Rudy. I’m breaking up the act & going on the road with Kenny. He respects me, & when I talk, he really listens.”

The little guy above will soon find out Kenny has his hand just as far up his ass as Rudy did.

A comic of Abraham Lincoln sitting in a chair across from another man of the era. The other man has a ventriloquism dummy on his knee. The dummy looks sternly at Lincoln and says, “Big deal! I was born in a LOG.” — Comic by the author, all rights reserved

Abe Lincoln may have been born in a log cabin, but this wooden dummy easily wins a game of one-upmanship. That hand up his backside doubtless belongs to a member of an opposing political party.

For those who’ve fantasized about being married to a talented ventriloquist (and who hasn’t?), consider this…

A comic of a middle-aged couple sitting at opposite ends of a sofa at a marriage counselor’s office. The therapist sits across from them. With his arms crossed defiantly, the man says, “She insists on speaking for herself.” The woman looks crossly at him and says, “He kisses without moving his lips.” The caption below reads: Couples counseling with a ventriloquist and his wife. — Comic by the author, all rights reserved

In this final image, I’ve used ventriloquism to illustrate our species’ unfortunate tendency to condemn anything outside of our tribe’s sanctioned manifesto.

A comic of the cliche setting of a witch-witch burning in colonial America. Amid a crowd of angry, shouting, accusing townspeople weilding flaming torches, is a large pile of wood with two large posts emerging from them. Tied to one post is a man rolling his eyes, and to the other, a ventriloquism dummy dressed the same as he. The caption below reads: The first ventriloquist. — Comic by the author, all rights reserved

Perhaps it was the young man’s insistence on using the dummy as his trial attorney that sealed their fate.

If you’d like to sharpen your comedy chops, start by seeing the absurdity in virtually everything we humans do. Once you can do that, you’re just a few scribbles away from being a cartoonist.

For more of my comics and my email list: bizarro.com/blog

My graphic novel in progress: peyotecowboy.net

The Magic of Comics Revealed

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