Some background on this comic:

Transcript:

I struggled for hours with what I thought was the humor’s focal point in this cartoon. I couldn’t decide if putting the coat on the vulture was gratuitous or not, worrying that only the hat was necessary. Making a decision between hat and coat versus just hat had me climbing the walls. When all was said and done, I don’t think that had anything to do with where the humor was really coming from. In this case, I think it’s the tag at the end of the caption (“Howdy, howdy, howdy”) that makes it funny. (I should have left off the coat.)