Comments on: Speaking of Rock/Paper/Scissors…

By: Buzz Killington

Buzz Killington — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 06:54:08 +0000

…and you don’t bring a gun to a snowball fight.

By: Doug Bratton

Doug Bratton — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 23:17:13 +0000

@ John Small Berries–Pop Culture Shock Therapy is almost exclusively in college papers, so $#!+ would make it through in most of them without a problem. In fact, I could probably use the real word in many, I just don’t. In a mainstream daily, there is no way in the world it would get through, unless an editor just didn’t get it. If you watch Nickelodeon, there are gags that make it onto a TV-7 television show that would not be allowed on the comics page. To me, that is sad, and one of the reasons (ie, ridiculously strict standards of what is considered appropriate) that newspaper comics today often struggle to be consistently funny. Imagine what a comics page would look like if cartoonists were held to the same standards as 8pm prime time television programming! A lot of good gags that stay in the sketch book would find their way into print.

@Dan–yup, it was a stupid typo! I missed it, and my editor missed it. It happens. I recently saw a typo in a collection of comics published by the largest publisher of comic compilations in the world, which means the cartoonist missed it, the syndicate editor missed it, and the book copy editor missed it. But hey, $#!+ happens!

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:54:39 +0000

I’m more bothered by that stupid typo. I mean, the “v” and the “m” aren’t even next to each other on the keyboard.

By: Todd

Todd — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:26:34 +0000

I mentioned in the other thread my old siblings would include dynamite, but I think they threw that in just to make up their own rule and beat me no matter what. “Dynamite blows up (whatever I throw).” Then I throw dynamite, and they throw scissors. I finally got smart and stopped playing.

By: John Small Berries

John Small Berries — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:20:00 +0000

@Doug: I think it would have worked fine without the caption, personally.

Just out of curiosity… do you think “$#!+” would have make it past the editors as a bowdlerization for the obscenity, or would they bounce it for being too obvious?

By: Elyrest

Elyrest — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:02:03 +0000

I wouldn’t have recognized the game w/o the caption, but the joke would have still worked. It would have been a slightly different joke as I would have assumed that the piece of paper could now stop the scissors from cutting him. Paper had power. The caption changes the joke. Better? I like it better w/o, but I’m not a big rock/paper/scissors fan so don’t go by me.

By: Julie

Julie — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:38:07 +0000

My husband and I use the game as a decider of who gets to change our daughter’s diaper. We usually do best of 3.
Also, I think I would have recognized the game from just paper and scissors.

By: mitch4

mitch4 — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:57:12 +0000

Yes, you can treat it as a randomizer game. And (as pointed out in the comments in the related thread a few days ago) the game-theoretic optimal strategy would be to randomize one’s own throws.

BUT there are people who go about it as a game of bluff and aggression. They talk up their attitude as seeing through yur psychological defenses, as though it’s predictable whether you will switch your throw after four rather than five repetitions, etc.,

By: Doug Bratton

Doug Bratton — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:27:16 +0000

Speaking of concision being funnier–I had another draft of this where Paper was just pointing the gun at Scissors (who was thinking the same thing) with no caption. I went with this version for a variety of reasons–one being that I didn’t know if Paper & Scissors would be instantly associated with the Rock/Paper/Scissors game without a caption.

Any opinions on which version you all would like better?

By: The Bad Seed

The Bad Seed — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:15:57 +0000

Yeah, I knew I was referring to 2 diffferent movies, but my original draft just seemed too wordy and over-referenced. Sometimes concision is just funnier.