A co-worker just brought this cartoon by my desk. (Note: the image above is only the final panel of the cartoon. Click through to see the whole thing.) My first reaction was "huh?" I couldn't see the joke. Then my next reaction was "Oh, so gay people are monsters; I get it. Gee, thanks" I might be reacting a little ultra-sensitively; my co-worker thinks it's an empowering thing that Frankenstein and his, ahem, "lover" are in the comic. Mainstream portrayal of gay couples and all that. Then I thought that maybe the joke is that the little green guy was upset because Frankenstein doesn't act like a monster; he's in a relationship and seems like a nice guy. Of course, they're stereotypical sissies and not monstrous, so maybe that's what's upsetting him, which isn't exactly the most empowering message, either. (For the record, the Frankensteins didn't return the next day, so they appear to be a one-off gag. This is the first time I've ever seen this particular comic strip, so I could be wrong.)
Anyway, I don't get it, my co-worker thinks I'm reading too much into it, and I'm beginning to feel like I'm running the Comics I Don't Understand page. It still looks like a joke at my expense, but what do I know; it looks like Fail to me. What do you think?
Update: I just found a few more comics with the Frankensteins, here, here, and here, so apparently they're not one-off characters. It looks more like the joke in the first one I saw comes from personality conflicts; the evil henchman monster is just put off by their "niceness," but I'm also seeing a lot of stereotyping.
Rar! Me humorless liberal!
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