Black History Month 2011: Keith Knight
February 8th, 2011 by david brothers | Tags: bhm11, james kochalka, keith knight
Keith Knight
Selected Works: The Complete K Chronicles
, The Knight Life: “Chivalry Ain’t Dead”
Keith Knight is funny, but not funny like a lot of funny people are. Some people specialize in certain types of humor. They’re good at gag humor, or building a story up until you’re begging for a punchline, wordplay, or whatever whatever.
Knight is good at several different types of funny. He can roll out dumb jokes one after the other, embarrassing personal anecdotes, storyline-based gags, and ripped from the headlines, all in one strip and with the same cast. It doesn’t ever feel out of place or jarring. My favorite of his various styles of humor is where he takes a real life situation, breaks it down clearly, and then throws a mean punchline onto the end of it.
Knight’s got two strips that you can read for free online. The K Chronicles is more politically oriented, while The Knight Life is more of a real life diary. K Chronicles is where the knives come out. He takes on politicians, real life, and anything and everything that could be considered pop culture. He’ll rip on Obama, music, or whatever’s made the headlines. It’s essentially a political cartoon in terms of execution, with a new target every week.
There’s a little personal spillover, generally of the joyous variety, but The Knight Life is where Knight takes on real life, rather than public life. Details from his life form the backbone of his strip, especially his relationship with his wife. It reminds me of Kochalka’s American Elf, in that both of them are more than willing to 1) make themselves look dumb, 2) sometimes share with surprising honesty, and 3) are punishingly funny.
I catch up on Knight’s strips about once a month. He’s super prolific and can work with serialized strips and one-shots alike, so catching up is a always nice way to kill an hour or so. Put that in your RSS and smoke it.
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As a Rangers fan, I have to thank you for including his ALCS cartoon. Thanks for the look at the others, also!
I can’t find these strips funny in even an ironic way. I do like how the woman in the orange dress is missing arms. I guess that’s funny. She must get around using the flagella under her breasts.
@anon: You’re adorable.