Experiences with Dark Comedy

I really can't remember the first time I encountered dark comedy, but it wasn't in the classroom. I think it might have been when I saw a calendar for The Far Side. It was one of those rip off the day as you go calendars, and my friend had bought one. Each day I would look at a picture, reading the words beneath it, and connect the dark humor being created. Some were funny and some weren't. I can't remember any particular one, but recently I looked at this years calendar, and laughed at this one picture of these two monsters hiding behind a door in the dark, the one monster telling the other, "this is my street."

The Farside Calendars remind me now of this famous artist who used text in his work to make a point. I heard about it in a creative writing workshop during my sophmore year at Western. My profesor described a piece of his he either drew or painted, that depicted this disgusting, fat, hairy man, and then beneath him, these words: God Made Man in his Image. I'm not sure if this qualifies as dark humor, but I think it's pretty funny. It also makes you wonder what kind of man God would look like. Although I suppose that question has already been answered if you consider Jesus. Not that anyone really knows what Jesus looks like either. He's portrayed as thin usually with long hair, and in North America; white.

Without dark humor, the bad things that happen would get to people. So, I suppose it's a defense mechanism we all use. Although there are some atrocities that are considered too taboo to joke about (i.e. Holocaust) most things we can enjoy making fun of, laughing at them when were not supposed to.