I got a nice review over at the Webcomic Overlook: 5 out of 5 stars, like my TXcomics buds Karl and Ramon. Looks like I won the reviewer over. Previously, El Santo thought that puns were the lowest form of humour. Now he says he doesn’t fear them.

Samuel Johnson was the first person yo say “puns are the lowest form of humour” and the phrase has stuck around since, which says something for some truth in it but also something for the infectious nature of words. I feel sometimes people just repeat things they heard because they sounded clever, rather than them being true. Like “The media has a liberal bias” or “the south is all a bunch of inbred hicks”.

Or that they repeat words they hear together frequently even though they don’t put much thought into why. For instance: people say “He was a big fat guy” where “big” is redundant, but adds to the rhythm. Or when part of the anagram is repeated after the shortened version like ATM machine or WWE wrestling.

Or a combination of seemingly clever ideas and repetitive usage like “conspiracy theorist” being used as a pejorative. Conspiracy is just a word for any crime that was planned (like conspiracy to commit assault) and theorist is just someone with a set of facts and some imagination (like Sherlock Holmes or a 6 year old with an Encyclopedia Brown book). So police detectives are the literal definition of conspiracy theorists. Those crazy, wacky cops! Always blaming B & Es on the Alien Illuminati!

Or in ads when they use phrases like “virtually spotless”, “part of a complete breakfast” or “made from concentrate” as if they were good things. It takes a while for someone to think “Hey wait… part of a complete breakfast? You mean, if I have some ‘toast, peanut butter, orange juice and milk on this high fructose corn syrup and oat bits’ I’ll be healthy? Maybe this product should just say it tastes good and not try to trick me into thinking it’s healthy?”

Advertisers and political think tanks use these tactics a lot. Ick.

But to get back to puns. The Wikipedia entry claims that Willy Shakespeare used over 3000 of them in his works. So, if Shakespeare is the greatest author that ever lived (as according to high school English curriculum) then that would seem to be at odds with puns being the lowest form of comedy. Maybe the lowest form is being-hit-in-the-nuts jokes. Or stealing someone’s lunch and playing monkey in the middle with it. Or saying the most offensive thing possible. Or Punk’d.

Samuel Johnson is the man who wrote a dictionary in 9 years, so he is book smart and knows a lot about language. But maybe that’s why he hates puns so much. He wanted words to mean one thing and not hop around the dictionary. “You mean bare, not bear! Get a dictionary you fop!”

I also won El Santo over with a strip that features princesses, unicorns and tea parties even though he’s not the target audience, which is nice to know. I started out making this strip because there wasn’t really a good comic for young girls being made. At least grown women have Cathy and For Better or For Worse. Publishers tell me that at a young age little boys will not read books with female protagonists and that little girls will read about either girls or boys. So that means most young children’s stories feature male lead characters and possibly a female companion/sidekick. That seemed like there’s some room there for the Nancy Drew or Jem and the Holograms of comic strips. Hence The Princess Planet.

Anyway, check out his review, write your own review, make your own comic, dance a jig, whatever floats your bag of tea!