I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply you were calling me a dumbass, I was calling myself that, I apologize.

I can assure you I am not the cartoonist. It seems like I am intimately familiar with the process because I am. You can look at my post history to see a few examples of comics actually created on the fly with no thought, writing, or pencils done ahead of time, just stream of consciousness and pens in a sketchbook. I can tell you, a lot of thought was put into the comic we are discussing because I’ve been through that grinder plenty of times myself.

You’re correct about that third panel housing what most people would consider the actual punchline, which is why the fourth is so interesting. I’m not familiar with this cartoonist, so it could be that they are just so stuck in a four panel writing pattern that they felt the need to fill that panel with something, anything, so they just slapped something in there, but it really reads to me as much more thought out and deliberate. I suppose I could, like, go look at more of their work, but, eeeeeeehhhhhhh…

I also disagree that it’s not a character study. When working with three or four panels, cartoonists have to set characters up quickly and efficiently and this comic does that extremely well. That red guy is consistent throughout every panel, as is the protagonist ,we know exactly who he is. To the point where in panel three, the speech balloon is not attributed to anybody, yet we know exactly who is speaking, which is harder to pull off than you might think.

Anyways, you got me blabbing and blabbing. I could talk this kind of shit all day, I take it pretty seriously, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Again, you could totally be right. Without looking at more of their work, it’s possible this artist is a hack fraud and I am talking up a total sloppy amateur. But just judging from this single piece of work, I suspect they’re probably pretty good.