In panel 1, Francis has his hands in his pocket which signifies that he is casual about this endeavor. Nate’s smile and raised eyebrows hint that he is excited. The green background and tree in the background shows that this is outside which means that they are most likely near spitsy. The second panel shows skepticism by Francis with a raised eyebrow and unique background colors. The third panel is setting up the punchline of the joke, which is that a saliva sample would be easy to get, considering that Spitsy drools a lot. This could hint to him being a poodle, since poodles are known for excessively drooling. Panel four goes with the joke, and has a blue oval spotlighting Nate and Francis with a white background which is common in comic strips when a character is saying something obvious. In this case, it’s with Spitsy’s excessive drooling which makes it easy to get a saliva sample for a dog DNA test. This goes with a surprise factor of a joke, because with most dogs it would be relatively difficult to get a saliva sample easily. The surprise factor is a commonly used trick in big nate, and is a key element of humor. Many people recognize is of one of the “3 elements of humor”, which goes Incongruity, surprise, and recognition.
I am crediting http://www.miltontimmons.com/ElementsofHumor.html for this piece of trivia, although you can find an interesting page of it on Wikipedia, I don’t consider it a credible source, but I’ll link it in case you want to see it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surprise_factor This article talks about how knowing a punchline before being told it can nullify a joke’s surprise factor, thereof making it less funny.
In panel 1, Francis has his hands in his pocket which signifies that he is casual about this endeavor. Nate’s smile and raised eyebrows hint that he is excited. The green background and tree in the background shows that this is outside which means that they are most likely near spitsy. The second panel shows skepticism by Francis with a raised eyebrow and unique background colors. The third panel is setting up the punchline of the joke, which is that a saliva sample would be easy to get, considering that Spitsy drools a lot. This could hint to him being a poodle, since poodles are known for excessively drooling. Panel four goes with the joke, and has a blue oval spotlighting Nate and Francis with a white background which is common in comic strips when a character is saying something obvious. In this case, it’s with Spitsy’s excessive drooling which makes it easy to get a saliva sample for a dog DNA test. This goes with a surprise factor of a joke, because with most dogs it would be relatively difficult to get a saliva sample easily. The surprise factor is a commonly used trick in big nate, and is a key element of humor. Many people recognize is of one of the “3 elements of humor”, which goes Incongruity, surprise, and recognition.
I am crediting http://www.miltontimmons.com/ElementsofHumor.html for this piece of trivia, although you can find an interesting page of it on Wikipedia, I don’t consider it a credible source, but I’ll link it in case you want to see it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surprise_factor This article talks about how knowing a punchline before being told it can nullify a joke’s surprise factor, thereof making it less funny.