Thanks everybody!
It's one of my favorite strips as well.
I am bummed though because today somebody in another forum pointed out that "Far Side" has almost the same cartoon!
Can you believe it?!
I looked it up and it turns out Gary Larson has a crocodile farm on one side instead of a safari park and of course it's drawn all different but it makes us look like shmucks who steal other peoples jokes.
It's funny cause most of our jokes come from telling funny stories and hanging out with funny people so I am not sure if this was mentioned in conversation or somebody saw the strip way back when and filed it way back in the memory (we have read so many comics as kids) and of course I am sure that people can come up with the same idea at the same time as well......
We have found our strips somewhat reproduced by other people before as well. So far I have taken it as a compliment though.
Also I remember we had a strip where Chuck bets Julio he can empty his beer in less than 10 seconds with the punch line being he said "empty" on "drink". We were kinda proud of that one but it could have been an old drinking or betting joke as well. THEN a year later I see the same thing as a scene in the movie "Ladder 49". And since (back then
) Joaquin Phoenix was more popular than us, I am sure ours will be forever written up as a copy of THEIR joke....
Anyways, long story short, if you happen to find Gary Larsons joke and go "Wait just a minute!", let it be known it is a total coinicdence!
Had we known it existed we would have never drawn it. (we never wanna mess with a big player like that, especially one we really admire)