He Laughs at My Jokes - Fran Bull, c. 1987

He Laughs at My Jokes by Fran Bull is a work from her ink series that explores macabre humor, validation, and discomfort. The image presents a startled figure holding a disembodied head. The head looks back with a broad smile, as though the joke has already been told and appreciated. The humor is immediate, but it is also deeply strange. Bull gives us laughter without a body, affirmation without wholeness, and comedy wrapped inside an image of rupture.

One of the most interesting aspects of this piece is that, much like Bull’s cancer treatment series, which was reproduced by hand in limited quantity, this original work is numbered 11/11. This suggests Bull may have created ten hand-painted copies of the piece and kept the final version for herself. This remains unconfirmed, and it is also atypical, as the companion piece, She Laughs at My Jokes, is not numbered. That numbering gives the work an added layer of intrigue, positioning it somewhere between original drawing, hand-repeated image, and private endpoint.

When compared with She Laughs at My Jokes, the reaction of the central figure becomes especially important. In She Laughs at My Jokes, the central figure smiles as well, appearing to share in the absurd delight of the disembodied head. The laughter feels mutual, even if the image remains surreal. That is not the case in He Laughs at My Jokes. Here, the figure appears shocked, unsettled, and unable to participate in the humor of the moment. The joke may have landed, but the situation has not become comfortable.

That reaction gives the work its deeper tension. Even within the macabre world of Fran Bull, not every character accepts the surreal or grotesque as normal. A disembodied head is still something to react to. The figure’s open mouth and stiff posture suggest surprise, confusion, or even alarm. Bull allows the absurdity to remain funny, but she does not let it become harmless. The image holds onto the discomfort of what is actually being shown.

There is also a play on gender between the two companion works. In She Laughs at My Jokes, the female disembodied head feels self-satisfied and almost comical. The humor appears more reciprocal, as if both figures understand the joke and the terms of the exchange. In He Laughs at My Jokes, the male head reads differently. Its smile feels more intrusive, even aggressive. The laughter becomes less shared and more imposed. Rather than creating connection, it creates pressure.

Bull also interrogates the idea of someone laughing at another person’s jokes. On the surface, the phrase suggests charm, approval, and social ease. Someone who laughs at our jokes validates us. They confirm our cleverness, our desirability, or our control of the room. But Bull complicates that dynamic by removing the body. The laughing head becomes reduced to a function: it exists to respond, affirm, and reflect pleasure back toward someone else.

This makes the disembodied head more than a surreal gag. It becomes a symbol of validation stripped from personhood. If another person’s value lies primarily in how they satisfy the ego, then that person becomes merely a sounding board for one’s own enjoyment. Perhaps this is why Bull removes the body. The most important part of the figure is the head: the part that laughs, agrees, and confirms the cleverness of the jokester.

The starkness of the India ink heightens this effect. Bull uses black, gray, and white to create a world where humor and horror sit very close together. The smiling head is exaggerated almost to the point of caricature, while the standing figure’s alarm prevents the viewer from settling fully into the joke. The work becomes funny and uncomfortable at once, which is exactly where Bull’s best macabre images tend to operate.

He Laughs at My Jokes ultimately turns laughter into something unstable. It may be affirmation, but it may also be disturbance. It may create connection, but it may also reveal imbalance. Bull takes a familiar social pleasure—the joy of making someone laugh—and pushes it into grotesque territory, asking what remains when laughter becomes detached from the full humanity of the person offering it. In this work, humor no longer feels innocent. It becomes a mirror, a performance, and a small act of possession.