I’ll always wonder how it got published. It was the naughtiest comic I’ve ever created, at least intentionally. As I recall, it sailed through the system without a hitch. Here it is.
4-25-98 Comic (click it to enlarge)
My best guess as to why editors allowed it in newspapers is that minors wouldn’t get the joke, whereas adults who had jobs would appreciate the inference that the pointy-haired-boss is a dick. But I also think it helped that it was funny.
There’s an unwritten rule in humor that you can get away with more vulgarity if the joke is extra funny. The best example I can think of is the Seinfeld episode called The Contest. The story involved the entire cast competing to see who could avoid masturbating for the longest time. I’m convinced that it only got on television because it was so spectacularly funny. (And it didn’t hurt that it was a huge hit show.)
By the time my “womb” comic ran, Dilbert was already a big hit. And it’s fair to say that lots of people hate their bosses enough to think of them as huge dicks, which makes the comic seem funnier. When you combine that with the fact that kids won’t get the joke, I had accidentally created the perfect storm situation for getting away with maximum vulgarity.
And yet there is one comic that topped them all. One day I got an e-mail from a reader who said, “I see what you’re doing. In your comic today you drew that character to look like a huge penis.”
My first reaction was that the reader was, ironically, a nut. Obviously I would never draw a cartoon featuring a huge talking penis. And if I did, obviously it would never get published. I was submitting my work so many months ahead at that point that I didn’t even know which comic he was referring to. But out of curiosity I decided to look and see if there was any merit to his absurd claim that I drew a character that looks like a gigantic penis. This is the comic.
12-2-92 Comic (click it to enlarge)
[image missing]
Oh. Okay. Maybe.