I sat on the bench just inside the Skibo Student Union at Carnegie Mellon University, waiting for the shuttle. I was bundled in a winter coat and scarf, which was a bit warm for the hallway, but underdressed for the windy snowdrifts right outside the door at 9pm this December evening.
By the bench was a stack of student newspapers. The Tartan. With one of my comic strips printed inside. Stacks and stacks of them.
This comic strip was rather experimental. One character quotes an interesting politically-charged fact from the newspaper, while another listens. Then the other character offers him a banana.
This comic didn't make any sense to me at all. I was just trying to be bizarre when I had written it. However, I had friends review my ideas. Most of my ideas were very bad. This set of bizarre strips was fetching higher approval than anything I had done in the past. Past strips had focused on being clever, or insightful. So people preferred bizarre to clever? Well OK.
But now it was published, so it wasn't just my friends who would see it. The whole student body would see it. I was exposing my soul here, and I didn't even understand why the strip was considered funny.
A troupe of drama students I didn't recognize came along and stood by the bench. They were waiting for the shuttle as well. They were discussing their assignment of applying drama to everyday life. One, a tall mulatto bass with short green hair and a trenchcoat, sat on the bench next to me.
He picked up a newspaper. "The comic section in this newspaper is quite humerous," he explained to his friends. He sat up straight, opened to the comics, and held it at arms length. He peered.
"Here is one. One character is reading a newpaper. He reads, 'Although cigarette smoking has been on the decline for more than twenty years, 32 percent of men and 28 percent of women still smoke.'" The actor orated it expressively, with exaggerated enunciation. "'This happened despite 79 percent of them knowing the dangers.' Then the other says," he paused, "'Want. A. Banana?'"
He stared at it, frowning. Then he looked up at his peers. "That is. Very. Funny." he solemnly said. "Truly." He looked back at the comic, the back and forth at his peers. "It gets me," he said in earnest, tapping his chest twice, "right here."
His fellow thespians launched into a serious discussion of their (implausible) deep appreciation of Kiltie Cafeteria food.
I considered speaking up, saying that I was in fact the author of that comic, but thought better of it. I didn't want to make myself an easy target. That performance had been significantly funnier than my original comic strip. Those actors must actually know what they are doing. But I didn't see immediately how to condense it into a new comic strip itself. I studiously ignored them, staring at the floor, and continued pretending I wasn't there.