Suggestions for Future Themes
We're always open to suggestions for issue themes, but from time to time we like to open up a central place for people to come and offer ideas. So here it is! If you've got a theme you want to see, leave a comment (logged in or anonymously) and suggest it! If you like someone else's suggestion, leave a comment in reply and voice your support for it! Popular acclaim won't guarantee a theme will be used, but we definitely weigh popularity when designing future schedules.
As you're brainstorming, consider some things we find make for effective themes:
You can of course send us suggestions through other social media platforms, but this space gives everyone a chance to see what other people are thinking as well.
As you're brainstorming, consider some things we find make for effective themes:
- Broad possibilities: Before suggesting a theme, take thirty seconds to brainstorm (very vague) story ideas that would fit it. If you can't come up with more than three, or if they're all really just the same story with slightly different settings, it's probably too narrow.
- Openness to interpretation: Our Guys and Balls issue got a story about knitting. Our Hookers and Blackjack issue got a story about fishing. Our Wild Wild West issue was basically about everything but cowboys. Not only do open themes encourage creativity, they keep the issue from being the same thing a dozen times.
- Tone-neutrality: Okay, so once in a while we pick a theme with obvious comic implications. But those are better interspersed with ones that can go in multiple emotional directions.
- Understandability at face value: If the theme title is a reference, it shouldn't be something that only makes sense if you know what it's referencing. While things are always better if you get the joke, getting the joke can't be the only way to appreciate a prompt.
You can of course send us suggestions through other social media platforms, but this space gives everyone a chance to see what other people are thinking as well.