I often wrestle with two problems when it comes to making a pun-based comic:

1. How much is too much? At what point will I have crossed a line, inviting an angry mob armed with torches & pitchforks?
2. What do I do when there isn’t enough setup to stretch it out to the full four panels?

Problem Number The Second, at least, I found an answer for this week. I’m not so sure about Problem The Very First, however…

It’s been a decent amount of time since I inflicted a truly great groaner upon my readership, I think.

Am I good for a while? How long should I wait before doing it again?

You might think I’m reaching for the sake of a joke setup but, no, this is based on an actual comment overheard during a homeward commute a few weeks ago.

In other news, this week’s comics were made with the aid of a hot pixel removal tool and a RAW extractor. I’ve been shooting JPG format in the camera up to this point, which makes it harder to deal with one particular prominent red pixel that you may have noticed, especially in some of the Quackvent posters. The downside is that, for some reason, the camera is more finicky now. It took two entire passes to get workable shots for these four frames because the focus mechanism didn’t get anywhere near the two ducks the first time through. I’m not sure what I broke while messing around in the menus, but this whole new way of doing things is difficult enough without the camera making things worse…

Happy Monday to you! I don’t suppose you caught the last few days’ worth of entries, did you…?

Just be glad that I didn’t make this a joke about stopping for gasoline. (Or petrol, if that’s your term for it.)

Happy Thanksgiving, fellow citizens of the USA. Don’t stuff yourself too much, okay?

What can I say, Iron Chef America is a fun show! And if you really want the cracktacular entertainment, try out the original old Japanese rendition.

There is a problem with this particular kind of wordplay, the homophone, in a comic: The joke relies on the reader seeing the “wrong” word, and you have to assume that the “listener” (poor Rusty in this case) “gets” that the person using the “wrong” word is doing so deliberately. It might be a bit of a reach.

Then again, maybe I’m overthinking this stuff. We’re talking about rubber ducks, after all.

At any rate: Since our webcomic pals the Tree Lobsters made a “making of” reel, I decided to give it a whirl as well. So if you’re interested, check out how today’s comic was made (minus the photography), condensed down to just over three minutes of video.

Yes, there’s a reason I used those specific first and last musical act names. You didn’t think this was completely random, did you? (Not that I’d blame you, I suppose.)

Also: We’ve seen that Roger can interact with Rei in a non-joking, reasonably coherent manner. If he’s mentally prepared beforehand, that is… apparently he doesn’t react well to surprises.

…

There’s an awful lot of 80s up there, isn’t there? Hmm. Clearly I am a product of my times.

This is another of those occasions in which I have more fun with the windup to the punchline than I do with the punchline itself. I love this stuff…

I’ve had this joke bouncing around in the back of my head for years, people. You’re lucky I waited this long.

Bring on the Trekkies! And the Queen fans, for that matter!

It makes you wonder if he’s thinking of a career in stand-up comedy as a fallback gig in case particle physics doesn’t work out, doesn’t it?

And yes, the iPhone debuted in 2007. It’s never too late to make a bad joke, I often say!

…

After some good commentary (on-site and off) about the last time Roger and Neil critiqued a joke, I figured I’d give it another try. What do you think? If nothing else, it gives me another thing to do with the pair of them (you know, besides inflicting bad jokes on their deskmates and playing word games with musical artists’ names), anyway. My very own Statler and Waldorf, eh?

Also: Yes, the First Mate is another of Wonderduck‘s gifts. I don’t yet know what to do with that big yellow duck he sent, though. Hmm.