Barrel of Crude

Yes, this is another misinterpretation of words cartoon. The tricky part was choosing what I wanted the barrel to be saying. I know that not all of the comments are actually crude, but I think they still work.

Uncivil War

The idea for this came from thinking of turning Civil War into Uncivil War. Then, I decided to make Charlie Sheen the WMD because of his own way with words. Finally, I decided to use the Oval Office door rather than try to create a podium and the President in Visio.

Ghosts in the Workplace?

I title my cartoons so I can keep track of them. However, I don't want to reveal the twist in the name, so I did not want to name today's CoV as Under Cover Boss. That limits my options, so I named it after the special the boss alleged he was filming.

Get the Bad Guys Out

A key element in cartoons or most humor is that you set the viewer expectation in one direction and then surprise them with a redirection later. Obviously, here, you should have thought the President was talking about Libya or some other political despot and not an obnoxious Hollywood actor. Hopefully, that won't actually require troops or anything.

Clean Up Your Desk

Everybody maintains their own way of organizing their life and things in it. I'll admit I am closer to the 'piles of things that are usually related' than one who always puts 'everything it in its place and only handle things once.' So, the idea of using the piles as pillows could have some merit. And anyway, if I were to try and balance my head on my hands, I'd probably fall asleep and need piles of papers just to catch my head before it hits the desk.

Citizenship Test

I did hear that they gave the U.S. Citizenship Test to regular citizens and that 40% failed. It included questions such as "Who becomes president if the current President and Vice President are incapacitated?", "Who is the Speaker of the House?", "How many senators are there in Congress?", and others. On the radio this morning, they played a tape of some college students answering some of them, and they knew that the VP was either Palin or some white-haired dude. That was the point at which I knew what today's CoV would be about.

Embrace Change

When I looked over my list of possible Clarity of Vision topics, I had a line that simply read "Embrace Change." I do not know what my original concept on that was, but when I saw it today, I decided that maybe Change was someone's last name. So, if one person were reading the phrase, they would interpret it to mean accepting new business models while another sees it as a person's name.

New Lenses

Another of the misinterpreted word category cartoons. When the eye doctor asked if I wanted regular bifocals or progressive lenses, this is the direction my mind took me. Now, let's see if you ever hear that phrase the same way again.

Sob Story

We were recently driving from AZ to TX and in one town, I saw an extraordinary amount of Saab vehicles on the road. That struck me as odd, which made me think about the way Saab sounds like sob, which led me to today's cartoon. As I wrote it, I initially had the other person saying each line, but it seemed to fit better with Mr. Green being the one misunderstanding the word.

4000 Gallons

Anytime you read something, you have to make sure you interpret it according to the appropriate context. Well, I tried on this one, but their choice of verbiage made it still feel awkward. It does say that if I use my "towels more than once...we would save 4000 gallons of water a month." So, since I was there for two days, and if I kept the same towel, they would have to use all 4000 on that one washing?

Matthew's Diner

OK, I will admit this is perhaps a very loose translation of Matthew 11:35. No, you're correct. It is more of a transliteration. Still, how about the fine art work on the waitress?

Where's WaldObama

Political leanings aside, the USA should expect decisive opinions from their president on a variety of topics. I just thought it would be funny if he got lost in a sea of issues.

Nursery Door

This is a long-time joke I use around my family. And the verse actually reads exactly that way. Well, there are some words I exclude because they don't support the humor aspect.

Need a New Barber

I was having a conversation with a coworker one day and he asked where my barber was located. He is growing dissatisfied with his shop and said they weren't cutting it. We both laughed and agreed that would make a good topic for Clarity of Vision. Once I started writing the strip, though, that did not feel like the final punch line. So, I played with some words and decided on a dumb suggestion from the other person that would lead to the first person saying the same thing.

Japan Aging

I saw this story headline on NPR and did not think anything of it... until I read the last few words. If you had seen it, how would you have interpreted those words? You can see what I thought of in today's final panel.