020: Iteration

On the fine art of tuning

☕️ Small Talk

Comedians are a big thing these days.

#comedian, #comics, #process

I’m writing a comic.

A graphic novel for kids.

I’m aiming for the laugh a minute quality of Jim Carey movies, something like Ace Ventura or Dumb and Dumber . These movies seem to me like a comedy special, disguised as a movie. The jokes are the point, the movie is the vehicle for the jokes. The job of the movie is to string the jokes together.

Here’s a science comic I made.

This comic, is the kind of joke I’m aiming on telling in the graphic novel. What you’re seeing is a base of a joke… a first draft if you like.

The thing to do now is to show the joke (version a) to some people and see if they laugh. Then show a slightly different version (version b) to another bunch of people and see if they laugh.

Which version got the better laugh? That’s now the new (version a) ,and the job is to try another (version b)

In the past, comedians would spend years doing this process of A/B testing to iteratively build the best jokes. Now with the internet, it’s possible to show different versions to different audiences quickly speeding up the process.

A newspaper comic strip had to get it right the first time.

But an internet comic, has room to evolve. I just hope this comic doesn’t go viral!

Comedy is a science as much as an art.