Flying
2025 edit: It’s been years now since this comic, so I thought I’d mention that… I actually consider this as one of the funniest comics I’ve ever made. That it only seems tragic to many people is illuminating about the way narratives are consumed nowadays, waiting until the end to make sense of them rather than actively interpreting them as they go along. At the risk of killing the joke by dissecting it: by the fourth panel the reader should have the mental picture of the man having a typical flying dream in which he soars through the air like Superman (an often pleasant dream), and having their curiosity piqued as to why this is troubling to the couple. Only then the subversion of the final panel works. Are you wrong if you didn’t get it? Not really: I believe it’s symptomatic of how we’ve adapted to an endless stream of rapid information in which, for our sanity, we often reserve our thoughts until the full message is complete. I try to take this into account with my current work, but I have to admit, this phenomenon makes subversion of expectations a trickier challenge.
I know this sounds a bit like “I’m not wrong, it’s the readers who are wrong!” But it’s part of a larger trend I’ve been observing. It’s why a lot of older comedy seems cold, cruel and mean-spirited: it was never meant to be consumed that way. And I believe it’s why a lot of current comedy is going to seem incredibly milquetoast for future generations, once the pendulum swings back.
When a plane crashes it’s usually nose first and that means the cockpit so the pilot doesn’t survive. This is tragically backwards and the poor guy will likely get grief from surviving (and grieving) family members of the passengers and crew to add to his own guilt.