False Knees

About

False Knees is a webcomic created by Joshua Barkman. The comic has grown popular with its existential humor often featuring dialogue between birds. Several of the comics have been turned into exploitable templates, including Annoyed Bird, Get Better Material, and Wasn't This Leaf Green Before?

History

The first False Knees comic was posted by Joshua Barkman November 8th, 2011 (shown below).^[1] Many of his early comics showed human features, but in an interview with Go Comics^[2] in 2017, he explained that he began drawing animals because of their familiarity in North American culture. He also stated the naturalistic setting of many of his comics is inspired by the fact he has worked outside most of his life, planting, pruning and removing trees.

He began garnering widespread attention with the comic that would become known as the "Annoyed Bird" meme, which he posted February 11th, 2016^[3] (shown below). The comic was by far his most successful to that point, gaining over 167,000 notes on Tumblr.^[4]

Over the following three years, several other comics of his did well on social media. Some of his most popular comics include one called "Honk," which gained over 20,000 points in Reddit's /r/comics^[5] (shown below, left) and another titled "Lucky Bird"^[6] which gained over 84,000 notes on Tumblr^[6] (shown below, right). False Knees comics have been compiled in articles by Funny Or Die^[7] and Bored Panda.^[8]

Online Presence

False Knees has developed a strong presence on social media. The comic's Instagram page has over 383,000 followers,^[9] its Twitter page has over 43,000 followers,^[10] and its Facebook page has over 191,000 likes.^[11] Barkman also has a Patreon page^[12] with over 300 patrons.

Related Memes

Annoyed Bird

Annoyed Bird is a four-panel exploitable based on webcomic by False Knees. The comic features a small bird being overshadowed by a much larger crow. On February 11th, 2016, webcomics artist False Knees published "Juncrow." In the four-panel comic, a small bird is singing on a branch, when another, bigger bird flies down and caws much louder (shown below).

Various Examples

Get Better Material

Get Better Material refers to a series of exploitable images based on a False Knees webcomic. In the meme, a bird is performing stand-up comedy. However, when a heckler boos the bird and says to "get better material," the bird looks at its notes only to realize that it does not have any other material. On August 26th, 2016, Josh Barkman published the episode "Stand-up Cawmedian" on Tumblr and his website. In the issue, a crow performs stand-up comedy, saying "caw caw caw." A heckler in the audience then screams "Boo! Get better material!" Visibly nervous, the crow looks at its notes, which read "caw caw caw caw," indicating that that's all the bird has. The post (shown below) received more than 2,000 notes on Tumblr as of October 2017.

Various Examples

Wasn't This Leaf Green Before?

Wasn't This Leaf Green Before refers to a comic by False Knees in which two birds are talking. One says "Wasn't this leaf green before?" to which the other says "Yup. Summer's almost over. About time to head south for the winter," to which the other one pauses, and replies, "What?" The comic has been turned into an exploitable where the second bird's dialogue is altered to strange, non-sequitur phrases. On September 20th, 2017, False Knees posted the comic on the False Knees website, Twitter, and Reddit's /r/comics (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References