dukkhasatva asked: Seeing how the debate is still raging in the thread, how do you feel in hindsight about the suicide joke from your column on monday? (I thought it was funny)
I tend to be a big fan of black humor (my favorite movie, for instance is “Harold & Maude”). I needed a reason for Undying to be in the Support Group and I had a running joke that the mechanics functioned as characters like their mechanic. All this seemed to line up to make the joke I did.
I did not mean it as a sleight towards the gravity of suicide. I’m just from the school of comedy that says that jokes that are true to the piece you are writing are fair game. It was never my intent to upset anyone. Obviously I did and I apologize to those people.
I feel about comedy exactly the way I feel about card design that every joke is not meant for every audience member. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from people that both thought it was very funny and those that thought it was very distasteful (and a few that thought both).
If this was my stand-up act, I wouldn’t apologize for my humor, but I am writing for a large public and family-friendly site, so I do believe that there are different lines and I may have crossed it. (I say may because I’m honestly not sure.)
I do think it’s important for me to do some boundary pushing as that is how creativity works best (in card design and humor). But as I said in my answer below, an important skill in creation is understanding past mistakes so I will definitely think about the suicide joke in future humor pieces I write in my column.
