Zombie Boy

Sometimes you come up with a great idea for a gag, only to find out later that someone else already came up with it. It happens every now and then and it can be a real drag.

Anyone who makes their own comic strip can feel me on this.

It especially stung me recently when I was watching a ridiculous television commercial for a product that I couldn’t care less about, and right at the end, there it was, a funny situation that I wanted to use in a strip that I had already laid out. I know that I couldn’t have seen this before, because I usually avoid commercials like the plague (thank God for the mute button), it was just a weird fluke.

Ok, so it’s not exactly like what I came up with, but it’s oh so close. So I angst about it. People are going to think I stole this idea, that I’m a plagiarizer.

I started thinking about it, and now I have a theory. All ideas and thoughts seep out of the world’s consciousness and drift into an ocean of collective ideas. Sometimes when we come up with something, we take a dip into that great big body of thought.

So I’ve been rethinking my fears about this problem and decided What the Heck? I genuinely came up with it, and I know it wasn’t because I had seen it before, so I’m going to own it. That’s right. And if anyone wants to make a big deal about it, go ahead. I’ve got a clear conscience.