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No. 33: Horse Leathers

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Horse Leathers

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Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/pomh/?comic=33

Strip by: Ian Boreham

{A bare-chested, muscular barbarian character dressed in leather and horse hide clothing, with a distinctive centre-parted hairstyle, thick eyebrows and moustache, and round, wire-frame spectacles, is smoking a cigar.}

caption: Lesser-known Dothraki Horse-Lords #23

caption: Khal Groucho

The author writes:

Khal Groucho (also known as Groukho, the Rapscallion Who Will Mount The Stage) was an unconventional Khal. Although he enjoyed roaming the wide Dothraki Sea, defeating lesser peoples and living off what he could take by conquest, it wasn't enough. He felt that there was something more to life.

Eventually, he realised that what he really wanted to do was to entertain. So, together with his brothers and bloodriders Chikho, Harpo, Gummo and Zeppo, he formed the Dothrarx Brothers, and introduced wisecracking, visual comedy and slapstick to the Dothraki, although he also performed prisoner-torture humour, since no show would be complete without that.

Their most famous performances were Horse Leathers, A Night at the Clop-era, A Day at the Slavers, Arakh Crackers and Dothrak Soup.

After he felt that he had reached his peak artistically, he rode off by himself, and disappeared from history. His parting words were "I go. Will not belong to any khalasar that will accept Khal like me."

---

When I first read the name "Khal Drogo" in A Game of Thrones, I decided that one day there would have to be a comic about Khal Frodo, son of Khal Drogo. And there was, unfortunately. In the years it took me to get around to starting to make comics, many people told that joke. That's a big problem these days with writing, humour or otherwise. I try to check all my ideas by googling before I get stuck into each strip, and I often find that they have already been done, sometimes to death. Not only are there more writers and comedians out there than ever before; these days anybody who thinks of something funny can put it up on the internet relatively easily. In the old days (well, decades ago), a joke could be invented by many people, but not become public for a long time. On the other hand, the advantage is that it's easier than ever to find if an idea is original.

I'm half-tempted to just sketch up some of my turns-out-it's-been-done-before jokes anyway, and put them up with a disclaimer.

But in this case, I was lucky to come up with an alternative joke.

Drawn in Krita and Inkscape.