Have you ever tried starting a company? It can be quite a challenge: There are tons of forms you have to fill out, you have to learn a dozen or so different laws, more if you have employees, there are legal issues, there are financial issues, and the whole thing is a maze to navigate. And you can’t really discuss it with foreigners as each country has their own laws.
Still, despite this being so insanely complex, I can’t remember ever reading comics about starting a company. Which is strange, since this is a goldmine of comedy and it could easily double as a tutorial in how to start a company. And starting a company is a big dream to many people, so such a concept is pretty guaranteed to get readers.
Go to any bulletin board for entrepeneurs, and you’ll find tons of questions about how things work. Take note of what the most common questions are – these would be great for including in a comic, because a) if it confuses that many people, there’s guaranteed to be a potential for comedy in it, b) many people will feel enlightened if you manage to tell them how this actually works, and c) lots of people will recognize the problem from when they had it themselves, and therefore get a whole new bond with the characters in the comic.
If done right, such a comic strip would be a great self-help manual for people wanting to be entrepeneurs, while at the same time containing tons of comedy which I assume would style-like have strong resemblances to Dilbert. And I know that I would have loved reading such a comic when I started my company. Actually, I still would.
87 down, 13 to go.
Random association; this idea somehow made me remember Bernard’s quest to somehow do his taxes in the pilot episode of “Black Books”. Dunno why, except that the humour of a comic like this would probably mine a similar type of situations.
Anyway, it is a good idea. And much like I loved that plotline in the episode, I would likely love the humour of such a comic were it done right.
I’ve seen way too little “Black Books”. But yes; the bureaucratical maze of creating a company is a goldmine of humor. And still, it could probably count as edutainment.
[...] For those of you who followed my 100 ideas project, you’ll possibly remember this as Idea #87. So I’m using one of them! [...]