The Quixotic Engineer

I recently came across Scott Meyer’s terrific webcomic Basic Instructions. The premise is “your all inclusive guide to a life well-lived”, so each strip is a life guide to doing one particular thing. For instance, consider “How to Open a Snack Quietly”, “How to Fake a Smile” or “How to be Suave”.

What’s especially great about Basic Instructions is how it manages to be funny on two levels; both explicitly through jokes and dialogue, and implicitly by describing uncomfortable situations that we all deal with in our daily lives.

Interesting side note: Dilbert author Scott Adams has recently been advising the other Scott in how to get his comic published in newspapers (a medium that requires considerable artistic compromise, but is much more lucrative). The comics that are only three horizontal panels long are the result of these experiments, in an effort to use the traditional newspaper format.