2024 Comics Fun Advent Calendar, Day 1: Meanwhile, on the Starship Enterprise...

Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock (both Jewish!)

Two Decembers ago, I posted a series on this blog called The 2022 Ed-Vent Calendar. It was 25 continuous days of brief, bite-size articles about Ed Wood, his life, and his films. The idea was to do the blogging equivalent of an advent calendar: lots of little presents instead of one big one. I think my modest experiment yielded some fun results, and I wanted to try something similar but not exactly the same this year.

A Heathcliff parody.

Many people think that this blog is only about Ed Wood, and that's admittedly a fair conclusion to draw. There is a lot of content about Eddie on this site. But it's not the only thing I do! If you go to the Dead 2 Rights main page, for instance, you'll see the logo at the top, and underneath it are several clickable labels: Ed Wood Wednesdays, Happy Days, Comedy Classics, Comics Fun!, and Best of D2R. Notice how Eddie is only one of those.

This December, I wanted to shine some light on the oft-neglected Comics Fun! part of the blog. What is this? Well, I've been obsessed with comics and cartoons from early childhood, and I've been making them since I was able to hold a crayon. In junior high and high school, I used to draw silly little cartoons on notebook paper and pass them around in class, much to the annoyance of my teachers. My characters included Iffy the Troll, The Apple Scruffs, Margin Man, and an unfortunate family called The Melties who were all made from wax and yet who insisted on going outside on sunny days.

Unfortunately, I've had basically no art training apart from what I got in elementary school, and my drawing skills are minimal to nonexistent. My handwriting is a complete disgrace, and it's rare for me to draw anything with pens or pencils on actual paper these days. But I still want to make comics and cartoons. So my usual method is to patch it together from photos and artwork I've found on the internet. Occasionally, I'll take an existing comic strip and merely change the dialogue or the caption. If the artwork I want simply doesn't exist, I'll "draw" it very crudely in Microsoft Paint. (Yes, Microsoft Paint!)

After years of posting this material on the internet, I've learned that people do not enjoy my comics very much. Their typical reactions range from total indifference to mild dislike. A few years ago, I submitted some of what I considered my "best stuff" to an editor once and received a swift but polite rejection. And yet, I keep creating this material. Why? Because I find it funny. This is stuff that amuses me. These dumb, poorly-made comics and cartoons keep accumulating on my hard drive, and I can't bring myself to throw them away.

And so, until Christmas 2024 finally arrives, I will be sharing some homemade comics each day with my readers. That comic strip at the top is the first example. Basically, I saw a screenshot of a Star Trek video game that had been posted to Facebook, and I turned it into a little tragicomic saga about Kirk and Spock's working relationship. Enjoy or don't. Totally up to you.

(today's zomby) AND THE FUNNIEST JOKE WILLIAM SHATNER HAS EVER HEARD!

Dear blog,

Sorry I've been neglecting you lately. What can I say? It's been a busy week -- a busy, exhausting, soul-draining week. Anyway, as advertised, here is yukmeister William Shatner in the obscure 1984 TV show Funniest Joke I Ever Heard:



How do I love this clip? Let me count the ways.

• It's William Shatner and therefore guaranteed comedy gold.
• He's on a goddamned horse for the entire thing.
• Before he even tells his joke, he gives us some personal background information ("I love horses.") and promises us that the joke is going to be "great."
• He takes a minute and a half to tell this joke, which turns out to be terrible. This confirms a theory I once heard which posits that joke-telling is not about humor but rather about controlling another person's time.
• The delivery of the joke is pure Shatner. He speeds through many of his words, lingers over a few others, and puts pauses where they absolutely do not belong.
• Instead of just making the joke's main character a generic, unnamed baseball manager, Shatner chooses to make him Tommy Lasorda. So much for timelessness.
• Shatner cannot resist playing up the drama of the baseball manager's desperation. ("He's losing his shirt! He's losing his mind!") In fact, Shatner delivers the entire joke with the fervor of an Old Testament prophet.
• When, at long last, the punchline arrives, it is baffling. Shatner says the words so quickly that they're almost unintelligible. You figure he's going to say something like "Kentucky Derby," but instead he blurts out "Hialeah." Hi-ya-wha?

For the record, "Hialeah" refers to Florida's Hialeah Park Race Track, which apparently used to be quite a famed horse racing venue. Wikipedia says it's defunct or at least semi-defunct and might be turned into a ballpark for the Florida Marlins. The park's official website sees things a little differently.

Either way, now you know what William Shatner's favorite joke is.

UPDATED! Because everyone likes a good Shatner joke, right?

Get it? It's one of those pop culture references you've been hearing about.

This was my latest contribution to So Much Pun! I don't know if it'll make the homepage or not, but I thought I'd share it with you anyway. I almost wish the guy doing the crossword had been Leonard Nimoy. That way, Shatner could complain about being -- brace yourselves -- "SPOCK BLOCKED!"

UPDATE: Turns out, I did make the homepage after all. Please to go vote. Or don't. Whatevs.