051 “Finger Play”

One question I get a lot of is “Where did you get your ideas?” There are over 200 strips, and hopefully by reading the commentary thus far you can see that the sources of the jokes are many, and cannot be fulfilled by a simple answer. In this case, I was watching TV and there was a magic act on, and I thought of the old “coin behind the ear” trick. My mind wandered to other places I could put quarters, and, well, you can figure it out from there. This was a popular strip for a while.

Artistically, this was a tough strip to do, as are ALL strips with sex scenes in it. I was absolutely terrible at male bodies, and it shows. He looks crunched down in every panel he appears in to save on space vertically. And her pose in the last panel is just a little wrong. Owch. Oh well, every strip is a learning experience.

Interestingly enough, in 2002 I received an E-mail from someone telling me about a Robin Williams special on HBO, and had I seen it because this joke was in there. I can’t get HBO here in Japan, at least as far as I was aware of. I wasn’t too sure if he was suggesting that I stole the joke off of Mr. Williams or something. I had forgotten about that E-mail until I had bought the DVD of that special, and I came across this line:

When a woman has to go to the gynecologist, you don’t WANT a doctor who has a hobby. You don’t want a gynecologist who’s also a MAGICIAN. No. You don’t want somebody going, “How are we today… oh! a DOVE! [pretends to pull a dove out and let it go in the air, then starts pulling on a rope] Oh what’s this! [continues pulling] Whoh whoh whoh whoh! [stops, then pulls out something and shows it] is this your card?”

Anyways, for the record, I did this back in 2000. Darn you Mr. Williams! Anyone know a cheap lawyer?