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By Dean Norman

Do you send funny Valentine cards, or sweet ones? I like funny.

That’s the kind I liked most in second grade when the class exchanged Valentines. Especially the ones with parts that moved. So when I was hired at Hallmark to write and draw greeting cards, my favorite assignment was Valentines for Contemporary Cards.

We might as well be Valentines. We’ve been everything else.

For Valentine’s Day I’d like to give you a great big smooch.
That’s a cross between a moose and a pooch.
(They make wonderful pets.)

Those are two I remember doing for Hallmark. When I retired from a staff job at American Greetings in 1990, I started my own small card company, Wolfpup Cards. These are some of the funny Wolfpup Valentines.

What do you call a couple who exercise together?
Sweat Hearts.

You are the who
In my whoopee (two cute owls cuddling in a tree)

Kiss me Valentine and turn me into a handsome prince. (cute frog)
And afterwards we can go out for some burgers and flies.

This card assures a thought divine with hearts and flowers
That I is yours and you is mine and us is ours

I shut down Wolfpup Cards before I squandered all of my retirement savings. A lot of cards went into a paper recycling bin. What remains on my shelves are some fat books of funny greeting card designs (black and white) that were printed to be clip art. Valentines and every other greeting card occasion. Buy a book and you could copy the art, and make your own funny cards. That project was a loser, too.

So I am giving them away. Email deannorman01@gmail.com if you want one. I will ask you to cover the cost of postage and a padded envelope. Don’t know how much that is. No point in figuring it out until somebody wants a book. Many jokes are adult. Not really awful, but not for second grade kids.

Here is a sneak peek at one of my adult jokes. “So as Adam said to Eve on the first Valentine’s Day: Gimme another bite of that bad apple, Momma, and let’s git down!”

— Dean Norman

Dean Norman is a cartoonist and humor writer, whose work has appeared in greeting cards, The New Yorker, MAD Magazine, The Cleveland Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine and The Kansas City Star. He's also written comedy for cartoon shows and written and illustrated children's books. He illustrated a cartoon book for Cleveland Metroparks, Cleveland Metroparks Adventures.