Max Huffman exasperates me. He’s a 16 year-old kid in North Carolina who produces an absolutely brilliant webcomic called Mocktopus. You would expect a internet star that young to be aw-shucks adorable maybe, or strangely earnest, or unintentionally funny, or really dirty-minded... But what’s really shocking is not just that the kid’s sense of humor is professional level, but that it’s so understated and sublime. The strips are deadpan, ironic and cynical. It really freaks me out. Often there are jokes about jokes in a sort of meditative way. How has he even had exposure to some of these outmoded tropes, much less the sort of over-exposure that parody requires, much less the time and wisdom to become reflective about that over-exposure?
Also: a disturbing number of jokes about drunkenness. One would naïvely hope that he wouldn’t have enough exposure to that topic to get clever about it. Alas, clever he is:
I’ve been grabbing my favorites off the site for a while, preparing to write this testimonial, but I went back to the site to see if there was a new one and I got a shock! Huffman has human weaknesses after all—He’s on hiatus because his computer is broken! He’s raising money through Kickstarter, so go help him out!
Okay, one more:
1 comment:
He is very wise when it comes to humor, regardless of his age. Thank you for introducing me to this comic—I will definitely be supporting him.
One of my favorites: http://www.mocktopus.com/2010/01/jurassassination/
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