Authors shouldn’t tell cue their readers to laugh. Consider the following comedic exchange. “What’s the difference between the Yankees bullpen and Pizza Hut?” asked John. Mary shrugged. “Pizza Hut delivers,” said John. They laughed. “They laughed” cues the readers to laugh at John’s joke.

That’s insulting to your readers. If your comedy is effective, readers will know when to laugh. Reminding them to laugh at something that wasn’t funny to them will just draw their attention to ineffective writing.

Here are some situations that are usually examples of laugh-tracking:

1. When a character laughs at a joke, particularly his own. Seriously, who laughs at his own jokes?
2. When a character says something like “that’s funny.”
3. In certain circumstances, when a character cracks a smile. (This is forgivable if the character’s reaction to the joke is significant to the plot).
4. “Touché.”
5. “I walked into that one.”

According to TV Tropes, the CSI Effect is “the growing tendency of juries to refuse to convict if the prosecution fails to provide comprehensive crime scene analysis, even in trivial cases,” because of the influence of forensic crime scene dramas. Now, prosecutors sometimes try to weed out jurors that have watched CSI. That’s where conversations like this one come from…

Prosecutor: Have you ever watched CSI before?

Prospective Juror: Yes.

Prosecutor: Do you think crime scene investigation really works like that?

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Reviewer: I like your work, but I think that [some aspect of your writing] is flawed.

Author: Oh, that? I meant to do that.

Reviewer: Ahh… do you think you could fix it?

Author: But that would ruin the style of the piece!

Deliberately inflicting substandard writing on your story for “stylistic” or “literary” purposes is usually a prelude to rejection. If your reviewers were able to discern that it was either stylish or literary, they wouldn’t be complaining about it.

Here are a few areas that are especially prone to intentionally bad writing…

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The Hellboy Quote Generator is out, although it has been technically unreliable. On a comedy scale of 1 to 10, I’d give this a 5: amusing but uneven. It’s a well-done piece of viral advertising, though. (“Let me put this to you as delicately as I can.” *BANG*)

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Have a happy 4th of July!

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I submitted a potential rewrite of our introduction to the Critters Writing Workshop. It’s very short (2 pages) and I expect that we’ll eventually expand it to about 5. Currently, it’s rated PG-13 for adult language, but we’re considering modifying it to PG.

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I did a Google search for “bad superhero writing” and Superhero Nation was the top result. Screw you, Google!

[B. Mac] Speaking of Google, it decided to celebrate the 4th of July on its front-page today, which is slightly unexpected because instead of national holidays, they usually focus on holidays like Earth Day that are equally unimportant everywhere.

Picture of Earth courtesy of the HSCD School Board, atomic bomb courtesy of the Department of Energy, and Bill Nye courtesy of TVgasm. All blame for the low quality Photoshopping is ours.

Don’t you feel better already?

The original picture can be seen here.

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I found this list of Navy slang pretty funny. Here are some choice Navy phrases…

• Bullet Sponge: U.S. Marine.
• Cleaning Stations: Hour-long field day evolution where everyone drops what they’re doing and cleans their spaces. See “XO’s Happy Hour.”
• Corpsman Candy: Sore-throat lozenges handed out at sick bay in lieu of any substantive treatment. Sometimes accompanied by two aspirin. Continue Reading »

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UPDATE: I forgot to leave an artist’s tag, but the drawings of Agent Black and Agent Orange were done by Polawat Darapong.

I don’t trust anyone that calls himself a “superhero.” The only difference between a “superhero” and a “supervillain” is that the villain’s been caught.

–Paingod

Discovery Channel covered the discovery of a cave full of ancient Egyptian shipping cords.

Amazingly, these ropes were stored in the same way as nowadays sailors store their shipping cords — just coiling and tighting them in the middle,” archaeologist and rope analyst Andre Veldmeijer told Discovery News.

I imagine that his kids somehow fake illness to get out of Take Your Kids to Work Day.

Within a week, Superhero Nation will launch a trial run at a Monday-Wednesday-Friday webcomic.   We may offer observations about web-comic writing and design, but probably not often.

Agent Orange, everybody’s favorite mutated alligator, offers this comparison of dogs and gators as pets.

Why should you buy a gator? For the same reasons that buying a dog makes you look foolish and weak.

When a human buys a Chihuahua, he is saying “I value the company of small and conspicuously useless mammals.” Not surprisingly, his friends will quickly surmise that he thinks of them as small and useless. This is why Chihuahua-owners rarely have friends. Conversely, anyone who befriends a gator boldly declares that his taste and judgment are impeccable.  That is why even walking a gator down to the park will garner the respect and awe of nearby humans. Also, everybody loves gator parties.

Anyone who does not like gators is probably an idiot, a Louisianan or a drug dealer. Since you do not want to meet any of those people, a “Beware of Gator” sign is sure to make your home a friendlier and happier place. In fact, the only better thing for your home is a “Beware of Gators” sign. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

In addition to drug dealers and Louisianans, gators will protect you from squirrels. These predatory vagrant-mammals lurk in public areas, hoping that their bushy tails will distract you long enough to attack. Too often, this ruse is successful. That’s why violent crime rates are highest in cities, the areas typically hardest hit by squirrels. Fortunately, gators are wise to the squirrel threat. This is why squirrels will never approach a gator.

Gators will also protect humans from their worst instinct: playing golf. Golf-playing may stem from the mammalian affinity for holes (also demonstrated by the obsessive digging tendencies of gophers, squirrels and Boston). However, it is a peculiarly human trait to see a hole and think that it would be enjoyable to hit a golfball into it. Fortunately, gators are a natural and 100% effective cure for this defect.   This is why the presence of an alligator on a golf course immediately causes all play to cease. This also explains why golf course owners hate gators so much.

I’m tempted to add some snarky comment about unemployment causing Mewtwo to cling to guns…

Picture taken from Path-e-tech-graphics.

Agent Orange: Greetings, Mammal-Black! I require your expertise.

Agent Black: Tax trouble again?

Agent Orange: Indeed. Your former colleagues at the IRS persist in their shameless schemes to extort me.

Agent Black: And did this vendetta against you begin before or after you insisted on paying your income taxes in pennies?

Agent Orange: That wouldn’t have seemed unreasonable if they hadn’t demanded so much money!

Agent Orange: Greetings, Mammal-Black! I have been erroneously removed from the payroll and this has made me surly. Agent White has claimed that my entry cannot be replaced unless I have a first name distinct from my rank, which has doubly besurlied me.

Agent Black: Well, you do have a first name besides “Agent,” right?

Agent Orange: …

[awkward silence]

Agent Black: Err… do you have a given name? Maybe something other reptiles call you?

Agent Orange: Indeed, Mammal-Black! I am [hiss-hiss-hissssss].

Agent Black: I don’t know if we’ll be able to type that in for your name. I’m not sure how to translate those sounds into English letters.

Agent Orange: It would have a lot of s’s, I imagine.

Agent Black: Does your given name happen to translate into any English words?

Agent Orange: Depending on the context, it can mean either an “accumulation” (as in an addition, prosperity or flowering) or “certain death” (such as an unavoidable mangling or other violent demise).

Agent Black: Here, let me use a thesaurus. Some synonyms for “accumulation” are gain, boon, and benediction. As names, any of those words would be eccentric but definitely workable. Do you like any of them?

Agent Orange: I see. And what are the synonyms for “certain death?”

Agent Black: Uhh… under “certain death”, I see only gain, boon and benedict.

Agent Orange: Most curious! That is surely a sign that the Gator Gods want me to pick one of those three. But what was wrong with “accumulation?” That strikes me as a perfectly acceptable name.

Agent Black: I wouldn’t argue with the Gator Gods on this one.

Agent Orange: Of course not, Mammal-Black! Although I am disappointed that the Gator Gods do not appear to have smiled upon “Accumulation,” or “Mangler” or “Chompy” either, I must admit a certain fondness for “Gain.” There is now only one outstanding problem. Our agency employs two mammals named Gary. Won’t co-workers get confused if our names are similar?

Agent Black: I think our agents will be able to keep track of what every agent brings to the team. When you need a mutated alligator, you need a mutated alligator and not just someone whose name sounds like a mutated alligator’s.

Agent Orange: I find your mammalian logic impeccable.

Agent Orange: Greetings, Mammal-Black! The National Security Agency has leased us a new agent, someone I surmise to be an inordinately skilled assassin.

Agent Black: You surmise that he’s an assassin?

Agent Orange: When I asked about his experience, he wouldn’t say anything more than “implementing informational synergies and synthesizing data management systems.”

Agent Black: That doesn’t sound like killing people.

Agent Orange: The NSA is top-secret, so I don’t blame him for not spelling out the details of what “data management” entailed. Perhaps if you were charged with the stealthy disposal of compromised personnel in the middle of the night, Mammal-Black, you too would appreciate discretion.

Agent Black: He probably handled hard drive backups or something.

Agent Orange: The hell he did! I bet the NSA let him go for killing a surly underling that doubted his credentials.

“Ulysses is a totally incomprehensible book. Understanding it is like machine-gunning a pack of unicorns. Anyone that claims to have done either is lying, but should be institutionalized anyway.”

–Cadet Davis

Agent Orange: The British are delightfully odd. They all buy cars that run on “petrol,” which works just as well as gasoline but costs thrice twice as much. And they think they’re smarter than us.

“When you kill one person, it’s a tragedy. When you kill a thousand people, it’s a statistic. When you kill a million people, you’re in.” — The Supervillain Hall of Fame

“When I was a third grader, I wanted to be a President, a pilot or a ninja. Unfortunately, I’m too clumsy to be a ninja, too blind to be a pilot, and too moral to run for President.”

–B. Mac

Catastrophe: “I don’t have a gambling problem. I win.”

Agent Black and everyone’s favorite mutated alligator, Agent Orange, discuss the problem of squirrels.

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“In New York City, criminals chase the dragon. In Surf City, the dragon chases back.”