2013-06-20
Explanation
In this comic, a child runs to their father saying, "Daddy! I had a nightmare where we were attacked by clowns!" The father ominously responds, "That was no dream." In the next panel, the child notices something suspicious and asks, "Why do you always have a clown nose, sharp tooth, and giant eyeball in your pocket?" The father nervously replies, "No reason."
The joke has a darkly comedic twist: the father is apparently a clown himself -- or at least someone who keeps clown paraphernalia on his person at all times. The child'''s "nightmare" about a clown attack was actually a real event, and the father'''s suspicious pocket contents (a clown nose, sharp tooth, and giant eyeball -- all items associated with a sinister or monstrous clown) suggest he was the attacker, or at least involved. The humor comes from the horror-comedy juxtaposition of a comforting parent-child interaction with the revelation that the parent may be the source of the very terror the child is trying to escape.
In the votey, the child asks, "Are all of my nightmares real?" and the father laughs nervously, "Haha ha... of course." This escalates the dark humor further -- rather than reassuring the child that nightmares are not real (the normal parental response), the father confirms that all of the child'''s nightmares are indeed real, implying an even more disturbing backstory than the clown incident alone.