REDUX: Toasty the Toast Man

Sometime in late 2007, after I'd stopped writing Canned Laughter, I came up with an amazingly hilarious idea for a comic while in the shower. I didn't bother to write it down, and sadly all I can recall of the idea now was that it involved a talking piece of toast.

In late 2010, as my ridiculously long stretch of contributing to Critic was wrapping up and I was preparing to write my final column, I decided to bring things full-circle and submit one last Canned Laughter. I thought I'd finally use my toast idea, but try as I might I couldn't remember what the goddamn joke was meant to be. Eventually I came up with this strip instead, which isn't too bad I suppose (though in many ways it's just a retread of this one). Still, the mystery of the original joke still haunts me to this day.

And so ends my mission to upload all of the old comics. Now I'm going to get to work on uploading my old columns on my new blog Infinity Plus One. Check 'em out!

Laughter, Canned

After already threatening to put an end to Canned Laughter once, the strain of doing a comic every week during my honours year proved too much and I bailed once and for all at the end of the first semester. (From memory, I'd already written half the comics before uni even began, and it was still too much work to keep it up.) 

I switched over to writing weekly columns for the second semester, which was less time-consuming and allowed me to do different kinds of jokes. I ended up writing columns right through until the end of 2010, and they are all collected here.  

And so, Canned Laughter was done. For now... 

Don't Change a Thing

Bad parenting comic #3. Now I think about it, this could be a young Edgar. Poor Edgar.

Melzar Fails Again

Why Gilmore Girls? It just felt right.

The Sacred Elixir of Master Rishi

I think those spotty hills behind the guys were supposed to be sand dunes?

How Was Your Summer?

I remember that this was a polarising strip - some people said they loved it, others not so much. For the record, 'Summer of '69' may be my most hated song of all time, for reasons I can't really put my finger on.

Keep Out!

Continuing the bad parenting theme of '07.

A Generous Offer

I suppose this is a loose sequel to this comic, despite the fact that the two dudes are clearly different.

The Forager

This comic, along with two of my later columns, was submitted by the Critic editor for consideration for the 2007 ASPA awards. I didn't realise I was nominated until I got an e-mail saying that I'd won Best Humour Writer, which to this day is probably still the greatest achievement of my life. Happy birthday to me, bitches!

The Confession

I'm not exactly sure what visual style I was trying to emulate here, but the final result didn't quite match what I had in my head. Still, I think this one works.

Get Help!

I found the idea of mixing pedantry and cruelty intriguing, and I probably could've done more comics with this strange moustachioed man if I'd had the urge. 

I also remember smudging this one a lot (I think my pen was going a bit wonky), and you can see the twink marks all over this. Yep, I was running a pretty high-tech operation back then.

カンド ラフター

Another experiment with a different comic style. People who can read Japanese will notice that the text is completely different to the translation (yes, that ol' chestnut), although the Japanese joke is kind of ruined by the fact that when I was drawing the comic I was so preoccupied with making it look authentic that I forgot to include one sentence. (The dialogue in the fourth panel should read "いや、違う。俺はあの兄貴や。")

Timmy

I've only just noticed that bad parenting was a recurring theme in the 2007 run of comics. First up, little Timmy gets neglected.

The Robinsons

After threatening to end Canned Laughter, I decided to come back for one last semester in 2007. First up was another 'returning from the summer holidays' comic, which I think turned out pretty darn good (especially given the difficulty I had with drawing the interior of the car - man, those seats look uncomfortable).

Possibly The Last Canned Laughter Ever

2006 was probably my best year for Canned Laughter, but I'd still found writing a comic every week hard work on top of all the other stuff I was doing. So, I was pretty sure that I was done at this stage. (In the end, I came back for one last semester.)

This is an interesting look into my mind circa late 2006: things like Mike Patton, Lil Jon and cereals with a lot of fruit were a big part of my life back then.

Note: First name redacted to try to retain a shred of anonymity.

Bad Dream

It was fun to get a bit artistic with this one. And yeah, accountants are a bit of an easy target, but in a strange way I feel like they have it coming. 

Merge Like a Zip!

I had Jim's wife sit in the backseat because it was easier to draw, but I realise now that the implication that he doesn't let her sit in the front makes him even more of a jerk.

You Crazy Trickster!

I think this one contains my favourite punchline of all the comics I did. So unnecessarily rough. 

The Five Basic Personality Types

Some people actually asked who I was referring to in number five, but of course the joke is that it could be anyone. (At least that’s what I told them. You know who I was really referring to, don’t you? Dick.)

The Assignment

I spent way too long trying to get the dude's face right in the second panel, and I'm not entirely sure I did. Also, the dialogue in the fifth panel borders on Engrish for some reason. Other than that, I think this one turned out pretty darn good.

The Wine Drinker

Looking back at this one, I'm not sure it's obvious why the dude punches the wine drinker. The idea was that he's so annoyed by the guy blathering on about wine (I guess he got stuck with him at a party) that he just feels the need to punch him. Reading it now, it kind of looks like the guy takes personal offense at the wine guy's critique, as if he made the wine himself. But no.

(That's supposed to be a chainsaw in the last panel, by the way.)

Jen's Bad Day

This was meant to be a bit of an anti-joke: the set-up builds to the classic "At least things can't get any worse..." trope, and then nothing happens. Hey, I thought it was funny, whether anyone else did is up for debate.

This comic was coincidentally in Critic’s annual ‘Women’s Issue’, which led one of my flatmates to ask "Oh, is the joke is that she’s a woman, and her life is shit?" Uh… no.

Pete Comes to Dinner

This particular week I'd been stuck for ideas. I was doing the dishes the evening before the submission deadline, noticed a box of Moroccan Spice on the windowsill, and Pete's disastrous pun was born.