One of the hardest parts of my job is figuring out what other people will think is funny. You’d think that would be easy, but my own sense of humor is far from the mainstream. I can’t assume others will laugh at the same things I find funny.
In 1988, before I submitted the first fifty Dilbert comics for syndication, I asked my friends to sort them into the piles they liked most and least. My plan was to only submit the comics my friends liked most. Surprisingly, I found zero correlation across friends. One person’s favorite was another person’s most hated. In the end, I submitted all fifty comics. Apparently that worked.
Since then, I’ve learned I can’t predict when a comic will work. This past week or so is a perfect example. I almost didn’t submit the comic below. It seemed more weird than funny, but it satisfied my two-of-six humor rule, so I went with it. To my surprise, it got a huge positive response, at least from Americans who recognize the phrase “all hands meeting.”
Click to enlarge.
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Compare that to a comic I consider one of my all-time personal favorites. I didn’t get one positive e-mail about it.
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Maybe it was too subtle. You’re supposed to imagine the pointy-haired-boss sparking a flatulence/gasoline explosion. But what I like best about it is the desperation displayed by Carol the secretary. She thinks a flint golf ball and a timely cloud of flatulence is her best hope of improving her job satisfaction.
Which comic did you like best?