30 Hilarious Comic Strips About What Animals Would Say If They Could Talk

Jimmy Craig's They Can Talk: Animal Conversations in Comics

Have you ever wondered what your dog would say to you if it could speak? Jimmy Craig decided to give his own answer to this question by creating some funny illustrations of talking animals. The illustrations are part of a series called They Can Talk (Facebook here). Craig invites us into the minds of several members of the animal kingdom in order to give us a new and hilarious perspective on how they view the world.

30 Hilarious Pictures Of Talking Animals

30 Hilarious Pictures Of Talking Animals

Find the two viewpoints

Ask what the animal appears to be doing and what the dialogue imagines it is thinking. The joke depends on the distance between those two readings. Enjoying that invention does not require treating the comic as evidence of an animal's actual thoughts or feelings.

For another comic series built around imagined animal personalities, meet the characters in Ben Hed's Pixie and Brutus: An Unlikely Comic Friendship.

The invented voice supplies the surprise

The premise of They Can Talk gives a familiar-looking animal an unexpected explanation for what it is doing. That is a storytelling move: the drawing supplies one interpretation and the dialogue offers another. The comic can make our own assumptions look funny without revealing a literal translation of an animal's thoughts.

It helps to keep the two levels distinct. In a pet video, a caption such as “planning revenge” might be the joke added by the person posting it. The visible action and the invented motive are separate contributions. Craig's format makes that gap part of the entertainment, which is different from presenting a caption as behavioral evidence.

Write an alternate line without changing the picture

Changing the imagined voice changes the scene. A grand declaration can make an ordinary animal pose seem absurdly important; a complaint about a small inconvenience can bring a dramatic-looking posture down to earth. Craig’s premise makes that gap available for comedy, allowing the reader to recognize both the animal in the drawing and the distinctly human concern assigned to it.

Without the dialogue, the same panel would leave many motives open. The words supply the comic’s particular interpretation. That is why the drawing and wording belong together when a panel is shared: changing either can alter the joke, even if the pictured animal remains the same.

When sharing a panel, retain Jimmy Craig's credit and point to They Can Talk. The drawing and the wording work together as the creator's joke; cropping away the identity of the series removes part of the context readers need to find more of it.

Let the animal’s logic stay consistent

A short line often works because the image has already done the setup. The reader sees the situation first, then discovers an explanation that is more mundane or more extravagant than expected. The format gives animal behaviour a fictional voice while also poking fun at the stories people routinely attach to pets and wildlife.

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