Churning Your Own Butter

May 27, 2008

My comic on 5/24/08 raised some questions. In the third panel, Dilbert makes a reference to “churning my own butter.” Readers wondered if that was intended to be a naughty double entendre. Read it again if you care to refresh your memory.

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-05-24/

This comic was written in my usual way. I started with a premise and drew the first frame hoping I would eventually figure out how it ended. I had a notion that it would end with a reference to something old-fashioned, and I expected to cycle through lots of options before landing on something funny. As it turned out, “churning my own butter” was both the first thing I thought (it’s the most obvious) and also the funniest, precisely because it does suggest a darker joke. The boss’s line, “You make it sound creepy” was the frosting, so to speak.

Wait, I think I just did it again.