Updated June 21, 2023: A new version of the meme has surfaced! But now it’s just my words, combined with a new image and fancy font! The image is a painting called “Man in Top Hat Talking to a Woman”, and it is by the celebrated 19th-century Spanish painter Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta. I wonder what will happen next to this comic?
Original post:
Well this is a fun little milestone. I think this is the first time I’ve had to create a new version of a comic because it became a meme on the internet.
A few months ago, I started to notice an image from one of my Savage Chickens comics getting shared a lot on social media. Which is always a nice treat! It’s fun to see what people like and share. In this case, somebody had taken the Lesson 10 panel from my 2013 series “The Art of Conversation” and added a meme headline to the top of it. This version really caught people’s attention!
Unfortunately, the artwork was a bit scruffy-looking. It looks like the meme-creating person had to stretch the image to make it larger, and they lost some detail in the process. Artwork quality aside, I was still very happy to see that people enjoyed the joke and were sharing it everywhere. And I REALLY appreciated that my name wasn’t cut from the image, which made it much easier for people to find the rest of my work.
But then I started to get people asking me about using the comic in presentations. They had clearly discovered the image via the meme, but I didn’t want them using the scruffy low-quality meme version!
So I created two new versions: one with the original headline of “The Art of Conversation”, and one with a somewhat-edited version of the meme headline, for people that like the meme version better. Here they are…
I think it’s pretty fun that I had to remake a comic because it took on a life of its own online. Thanks for the collaboration, internet!
P.S. Feel free to share whichever version you like best on your social media (and, of course, I always appreciate it if you can link back to me when you do) 🙂
(This topic originally posted on Jul 21, 2021.)
Thank you for sharing your art. Thank you for sharing your gift. I was introduced to your Savage Chickens comics while reading Adam Grant’s book “Think Again” this summer. I laugh a lot at myself reading your comics.
Thanks Ivan! So great that you discovered the chickens through Adam’s book!
I’m a minister and I’m putting together a new training for how to be welcoming to newcomers. This is definitely going to be on it. I will link to this website, of course, not just show the comic!
Savage Chickens FTW!
What the hell is wrong with you? Lol. I literally googled this meme word by word. I cant forget it!
I just googled this because I saw the “scruffy” version on Twitter. Glad you were credited and thanks for the cleaned up image!
Nice! Glad to hear you were able to find this post via Google! 🙂
Good one. Where are other 9 tips?
Here they all are!
Lessons 1 -5: https://www.savagechickens.com/2012/04/the-art-of-conversation.html
Lesson 6: https://www.savagechickens.com/2012/04/the-art-of-conversation-6.html
Lesson 7: https://www.savagechickens.com/2012/05/the-art-of-conversation-7.html
Lessons 8 – 10: https://www.savagechickens.com/2013/09/the-art-of-conversation-8-10.html
Thank you for this post. I just discovered said meme, thought it was hilarious and also thought, “terrible quality and somebody added to it.” It led me to your site, an endless rabbit hole of funny (THANK YOU). The more I read, the more I read. I bookmarked it to come back and you are front and center on my radar now. To read your take and accommodation of this makes it even funnier and sweeter. It started off my day on a great note. Will post and share your link.
That’s great, Jeff! Thanks for taking the time to look for the original version – and I’m glad your search led you to the rest of my comics! 🙂
Your merchandise section seems out of date. I looked really hard to try and find a T-shirt with this.
https://www.cafepress.com/savagechickens/754139
Hopefully one day you’ll update your café press account.