"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down an open manhole cover and die." 
- Mel Brooks

What is The Bench? The Bench is basically an experiment. I like to think of it as a kind of puzzle - only you don't have an example of what the final picture should look like. You are given a few pieces (the bench, a guy, and a squirrel) and the challenge is to see how many funny things you can generate. There is no right answer to this puzzle. Everyone is going to come up with something different (and hopefully unexpected.) That's what the Bench is, it is community cartooning.

"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested, and the frog dies of it."
- Quotes by Truman Capote

How do I make my own Bench? It's as easy as falling off a roof right onto a rake. We provide here a raft of fabulous tools, some by us, and some by enterprising thrill-seekers. BenchCraft tools are available in the following delicious flavors:

"Caution: Cape does not enable user to fly." 
- Batman Costume warning label

Are there any rules? The Bench isn't a contest and there is no right answer, so there really aren't any rules. We have supplied the basic concept (or lack thereof) for you. You don't have to use all the characters, hell, you don't have to use any of them if you don't want to. This is what your teachers used to call "an open-ended assignment." We give you the topic and it's up to you to run with it. The only rule is that once you're done you should think it's funny.

"Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will."
- John Kenneth Galbraith

So I made a Bench, now what? Submit it to this website. We ask that you try to keep the size of the bench strips down, they should be absolutely no greater than 80k, anyway. This isn't too hard to do as the majority of Penny Arcade strips only come in at about 50k. In addition, please make sure the strips are no longer than 750 pixels wide, as larger sizes will make the page look exceedingly fruity.

"Your comic strip seems to be nothing but a clown with a small head who says random things." 
- Dilbert