98: Overcompensation
Explanation
This comic shows overcompensation in two ways:
- In the first panel, the comedian overcompensates in their choice of wording;
- In the second panel the man peeking over the woman's shoulder overcompensates upon seeing the word "bomb" in "Comedian bombs onstage" (the outrage is revealed in the third panel to be caused by the location of the woman reading the newspaper, that being the airport - a place notorious for strict security).
This comic, like many others, uses fancy words for comedic effect. In this case, the comedian's unnecessarily sophisticated vocabulary is immediately contrasted by the single-word exclamation, "bomb" (and even further contrasted by the deliberate typo in "this is a AIRPORT"). This is also not the first time the expression "gormless oaf" appeared in a comic.
Translated into simpler words, the comedian's "joke" would go something like this: "so there's this stupid guy whose rudeness puts a sad look on my already distraught face".
- gormless - lacking intelligence
- oaf - a stupid person
- boorish - rude, uncultured, unmannerly
- conduct - behavior
- doleful - filled with or expressing grief
- haggard - exhausted, distraught
- features - face
Transcript
A three-panel comic.
Panel 1: Black background. A comedian is seen in the spotlight, holding a microphone with one hand and the cable of the microphone in the other. A tomato is smeared in the background, implying that it has been thrown at the comedian by a disgruntled audience.
Comedian: "so there's this gormless oaf whose boorish conduct sears a doleful look on my already haggard features"
Panel 2: The comedian from the previous panel is seen in a newspaper article with the caption "Comedian bombs onstage". A woman with a red ribbon in her hair is holding the newspaper. A man with a hat peeks over her shoulder and says, "bomb"
Panel 3: People are panicking; the woman and man from earlier have been trampled by a crowd, which is running and shouting; the newspaper has fallen out of the woman's hand and is flying mid-air. Two simple human-like creatures in gray are standing in the background. One of them says: "this is a AIRPORT".