So What Even Is This???

Katzenstein’s Cartoon in The New York Post

Welcome to my humor project! In our English class, we were tasked with creating works of humor through researching and implementing styles of humor from other comedians as we wrapped up our reading of the satirical book Slaughter House Five. To end the senior year in Freestyle English, the senior class ended with multiple styles of humor presentations. From stand-up comedies, video skits, and cartoon illustrations, seeing everyone’s different styles of humor opened my eyes to how many techniques can be applied when creating humor.

Creative Process

With the start of the humor project and me only having two brain cells, I struggled to find any styles of humor that I found enjoyable or relatable as my humor is a mix of multiple styles. I already knew from the beginning my final project would be a cartoon or comic strip, so I began searching for popular cartoonists. I came across Demetri Martin, a stand-up comedian, appearing on SNL multiple times, and a New York’s Best Selling comic book artist. I also discovered New York Humorist Jason Katzenstein. Their styles of simplistic and continuative drawing appealed to me, and my styles were complete. The new issue was finding a topic to talk about. After some discussions, I remembered how fun, yet frustrating playing high school football was, and I chose to create political skits based on my experiences. From feeling like I was in the military all the time, to how difficult it was, I could easily create political cartoons ridiculing the U.S military for the questionable things they do.

Humor Presentation Video

An Unfair Matchup
Film Study During Football

Reflection

Overall, I was satisfied with the outcome of the project in terms of the content I created and how I was able to present it to the audience with general ease. However, I think I could’ve worked on the overall neatness of the drawings as you can clearly tell they were rushed. This project made me nervous as I don’t perform well when it comes to speaking in front of audiences, and with the factor of trying to make people laugh with a style of humor I thought most wouldn’t understand, the pressure was on and I challenged myself to do the project and present the best I can. Fortunately, I performed well and got laughs out of the presentation, which meant I was able to execute everything the way I want it to be.