Brevity by Dan Thompson for November 17, 2016

Errr…. what??

And Bruno…. sorry, but you just touched on one of my pet peeves.

No…. he is not.

Pastis has absolutely nothing to do with it!

I know people mean to flatter other cartoonists when they compare them to Stephan Pastis,

or even hint that he must be involved,,,,,

Cos he writes some great puns, no doubt.

But Dan is perfectly capable of writing his own….

for that matter, so are you, and so am I….

In fact, I was making puns long before Stephan was born.

Credit where credit is due….

and none where it’s not.

Try saying that five times fast…

zaq…. of course…

and I said people mean to flatter by it….

but even so….

it always sounds like we’re all copying Stephan Pastis…

or channeling him…

or we learned to do it from him….

And I never feel like that flatters another cartoonist when said in his forum…

especially older ones who did it long before Pearls Before Swine…

(Though Dan is very young.)

Wordplay may be Pastis’ stock in trade….

but he certainly doesn’t have it trademarked.

beautiful, loved it…..

Try saying that 5 times.

I have to agree with Susan

This pun actually is rather Pastis-ish, but Pastis really does not need to be mentioned EVERY time a cartoonist does a pun

SusanSunshine, take a chill pill!!

Actually Pastis’s trademark is making a really bad pun (or good depending on perspective), and then insulting himself for it!

Good luck, Erin

The pun predicament is proving to be a pesky problem.

Bruno, I love you and your humor but I have to agree with Susan. It’s not only you, but so many give Pastis some kind of credit whenever there is a pun.

This pun here in Brevity is pretty pure where as some of Pastis puns are a little stretched.

Rekam… Wow.Gosh, no…. That would honestly never occur to me!

My concern is the cartoonist …

How it might make him feel, thinking he’d made a good joke….

then reading his forum and being told he was somehow channeling Stephan Pastis.

I did draw on my own experience, though, in that it ’s been said to me.

One person even “complimented” me by saying I must have gone through Stephan ‘s dumpster to find a joke I’d made.

Now, I might even say that facetiously. about myself, but not someone else… especially a professional cartoonist.

Bad Henry. The Hammer. Hammerin’ Hank. Happy to have an excuse to remember an all-time great.

Good job! You did in one panel, what it usually takes Pastis 3 panels to do!