The origins of surreality

A lot of people have asked me over the years where my rather odd sense of humor comes from (this is usually followed up with, "What are you smoking?" and "Can I have some?", but I digress....)

It would be easy to blame it all on my father, since I did inherit his love of corny jokes and silly songs, as painful as it may be for me to admit. In fact, whenever friends meet my father for the first time it's usually only a matter of minutes (sometimes much less) before they exclaim, "Ah, so that's where Barry get's his sense of humor from!"

In general, though, this isn't the sense of humor that is displayed in my artwork. For that, you're going to have to blame three main sources. First up is Monty Python, specifically Monty Python's Flying Circus. As a young child I used to catch reruns on the local PBS station and, although I didn't quite get all the jokes at the time, I really fell in love with the bizarre situations that were typically portrayed in a totally straight-faced sort of way. Deadpan humor at it's finest, no doubt about it. Whether it was flying sheep, hedgehogs the size of buildings, or just a giant foot descending from the sky, it all just found a happy home within the nooks and crannies of my brain.

Next would be Douglas Adams, specifically his "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series. Mr. Adams, who died way before his time was a genius when it comes to writing dialogue (something which you wouldn't know from watching the recent Hollywood adaptation, but that's about par for the course for Hollywood). Again, though, it was the way he portrayed his characters coping in completely surreal situations as if it were just another day at the office that really tickled my funny bone.

Finally, I have to give a lot of credit (or blame, if you prefer) to Gary Larson and his "Far Side" cartoons. He was (and probably still is, although I don't think he's actually published anything in years) a master of the one panel comic strip. It's amazing how much humor he is able to cram into a small amount of space. And, once again, he's a master at putting normal people into extraordinarily bizarre situations, and the humor comes from the fact that he shows how people (and cows, don't foget the cows) would really react in those situations.

So, that's it. Mystery solved. And no, I'm not smoking anything, although I'd certainly give you some if I were. And yes, that is me squashed under that fly swatter....