A word in the hand is worth two in the bush

Wordplay!

As cartoonists, we have made a profession of play. And what better plaything than words, I ask you? There’s hardly any shortage of them: throw a stick, and you’re liable to hit a few dozen at least (but don’t do that, because some of them are very litigious. Torts, for example, or subpoena). Once you’ve got some in your net, you’ll find that words, as playthings, are quite versatile; you can rearrange them endlessly to delightful and comedic effect. Granted, some of us don’t play nicely: Navied, I hate to say, is known to pinch the heads off words in the name of fun. I heard a rumor once that Hilary tied a hundred words into a conga line and made them dance for hours, laughing wildly. But listen: the vast majority of the time, the words escape unscathed, and go on to live fruitful, and maybe even happy, lives. As you gander at the toons below, know that no words were harmed in the making of this Toonstack.

-Sofia

Hilary Campbell

I don’t know about word play but I do know about word FISHING!!!!! 

Maggie Larson

Sure there’s the Grand Canyon, but how bout that Brand Canyon of Times Square NYC! Okay, Times Square is genuinely the worst but after some very empty months of 2020, I’m glad even the awful ‘ole Brand Canyon is back in action…except when I have to walk through it. 

Ali Solomon

In my opinion (and my dad’s), there’s nothing that can’t be improved upon by inserting a good ol’-fashioned pun. Wedding vows, eulogies, tarot readings. The satisfaction that comes from connecting two unrelated things merely because they sound similar is unparalleled. And while I take pride in crafting gags that might have come from my 9-year-old daughter’s joke book (“Mommy, what do hamburgers name their daughters? Patty!”), I find most editors less than enthused.

Amy Kurzweil

Perk up readers, this is grounds for laughter. You know I need a latte fun in my life and there’s no matcha for the brew-tiful art of cartooning about coffee. I love to espresso myself through percolation and dis-disambiguation. In the name of love and foamance, join the caffeine-nation. Puns are the javalution to our daily grind! 

Colin Tom

I’m not big on wordplay but I’m chalked full of misunderstanding words—namely acronyms. It takes so much time looking up these new acros on urban dic, I’ll confidently assign a meaning to your ‘nym and run with it for the rest of my life. 

Johnny DiNapoli

Gossip is cheap, uncouth, uncalled for. But goosip is deliciously juicy goose goss and I want to hear it all.

Ellis Rosen

There’s nothing like a good pun, except maybe a bad pun, which, in its own way, is just a type of good pun. A medium pun is the worst of all puns, and a rare pun is probably the best kind of pun. A medium rare pun is better than a medium pun but worse than rare pun, but in the end nothing beats a simple well done pun. Why am I suddenly hungry? 

Navied Mahdavian

Witzelsucht is a diagnosable tendency to make too many puns. It must witzel-suck to have it. 

Sofia Warren

My hobby is riding a riff to the very end of the line. When you first get on the riff, it’s standing room only; you’re bathed in other people’s smells, staring three inches ahead of you up the fluttering nostril of some tired ER nurse. But slowly, the riff starts to empty out, and the buildings out the window get smaller. Now you can take a seat. Now you can put your backpack down. The stops are less frequent, the traffic thins; soon, it’s just you, the driver, and one other riffer. No one else will be getting on this riff, so you each expand into the riff like you own the damn thing, moving, stretching, shouting, feral and ecstatic. Eventually, though, your compatriot can go no further; with a sad smile, he exits through the rear door, giving you the look that says, I love you. Come with me. He is so beautiful, with his long leather duster and JNCO jeans, and in an instant the life you might live together flashes before your eyes. But a force larger than love keeps you glued to your roughly-upholstered seat, and the riff drives on. Why do you stay? You’ve left behind friends, lovers, flirtatious connections, all to continue on this riff toward the edge of town— nae, the edge of society. What is it that drives you? The driver drives you, says a voice, and you look up, past the cornfields flitting past you out the window, to the front of the riff, the driver’s rearview mirror. You catch the eye of the driver, and the driver is you.

ToonStack NewsStack

• Amy Kurzweil’s new book, Artificial: A Love Story, is available for preorder!

• So is Navied Mahdavian’s graphic memoir, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America

• Catch Hilary at Greenpoint Open Studios on June 10-11th!

• Bob Mankoff’s Cartoon Collections is now CartoonStock. Order prints of all your favorite cartoons today!

• Check out Jason Katzenstein’s NEW PATREON!

• Amy Kurzweil teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up now to get the recording of every past class!

• Be sure to check out Shelby Lorman’s newsletter, Please Clap!

• The same goes for Sofia Warren’s advice newsletter, You’re Doing Great!

• Order Hilary’s guided journal, What Did I Do Today?

• See more cartoons from Ellis Rosen’s weekly Junk Drawer!

• SEND IN THE BUTTONS…