Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Data was gathered from the following sources: Interview of Mr. Manix Abrera, Forum
with Mr. Abreara as guest speaker, and Content Analysis of 8 volumes of the comic book
series, "Kiko Machine" published from 2005-2012. Using the last method, the comic
strips were examined, using a classification system adapted from Long and Graesser
(1988), as a means to describe the characteristics of the style used by the author in
communicating humor. The categories include the following: (1) Irony, (2) Satire, (3)
Sarcasm, (4) Overstatement and Understatement, (5) Self-deprecation, (6) Teasing, (7)
Replies to rhetorical questions, (8) Clever replies to serious statements, (9) Double
entendre, (10) Transformation to frozen expressions, and (11) Puns. A tally of the
number of times each category was used in the representative sample of comic strips was
done. Out of the total of 287 strips included as the data pool for analysis, the following
results for their frequencies and percentages were obtained.
THE RESULTS
The researcher found evidence for all the styles of humor described in the 11 categories.
The style that was most frequently found in the strips wasSatire aggressive humor
(22.65%). This was followed by Irony (19.16%) and then the third most frequently
used device, Sarcasm aggressive humor" (15.68%). "Clever replies to serious
statements was the next most frequent style used (11.15%) followed by Transformation
of frozen expressions" (7.3%), and Teasing (4.88%). Self-deprecation, and Puns"
were each used at the same frequency (4.53%).The humor styles least used by Abrera
were Replies to rhetorical questions" (2.79%), Double entendre (2.09%), and lastly,
Overstatement and Understatement" (1.39%).
Abrera (2014) himself claims that he does not consciously pick which literary devices to
use but his choice of words in the conversations and content of his comic strips are
spontaneous and results of his observations of everyday events. For him, life around him
is in itself is funny and it is merely a matter of translating those events into print.
However, as seen in the three most used categories satirical aggressive humor,
irony, and sarcastic aggressive humor - the kind of humor seen in the Kikomachine series
can be said to be examples of what Martin et al (2003) called Aggressive humor. This is
defined as a humor style that employs teasing, sarcasm, ridicule, and disparagement
without consideration of its impact on others. This critical stance is true in his books but
typical of the style of satirical comics, he highlights serious events which plague the
country by playing around with the issues in a light-hearted manner without sacrificing
his intent to make his negative stance towards the issues known.
Judging from the results of this study, aggressive humor ranks first to explain what
makes the Filipino laugh! It is possibly our way of toppling powerful institutions and
rising above natural calamities that inflict suffering on us. Laughter helps us deal with
dire situations that make us feel helpless. Resilience, expressed by way of laughter,
seems to be our go to in order cope and overcome our various trials in our everyday life.