Five items, several of which lead to more complex topics: a Harry Bliss cartoon that I caught, reprinted, in the Funny Times for May; a Zippy on art forgery; a One Big Happy with a kid eggcorn; a Zits with alliteration and rhyme (and the sexual marketplace); and a Rhymes With Orange on consonants and vowels.
Archive for the ‘Art/lit/music/film’ Category
Balloon dogs and Mr. Met
May 3, 2014Two cartoons not really about language, but mostly about cartoon conventions (a Bizarro) and art (a Zippy):
The Bizarro is a wordless cartoon (though it has one sound effect) featuring a clown and his pet balloon dog:
(#1)
The clown has found his own way of cleaning up after his dog. (You probably weren’t expecting a poop joke on the funny pages.)
(Earlier: a Sam Gross wordless gag cartoon (of 1/28/10) with a clown and his balloon dog.)
Carl Barks
April 24, 2014For my grand-daughter’s 10th birthday, I gave her a couple of presents, including the Carl Barks book of comics for Disney, Donald Duck: Trail of the Unicorn (2014). Pre-ordered, arriving well after the birthday, which was unfortunate, but at least guaranteed that she hadn’t already read it (she reads an enormous amount).
Krazy Kat
April 23, 2014Fred Shapiro on ADS-L yesterday:
Since I am now working on the second edition of the Yale Book of Quotations, let me ask, were there any particularly memorable catchphrases or one-off quotations from the Krazy Kat strip?
John Baker replies:
Well, Krazy Kat referred to Ignatz Mouse as “Li’l Dollink,” and the strip’s captions referred to Joe Stork as “purveyor of progeny to prince & proletarian.” I don’t know if either of those really qualify as particularly memorable.
KK’s Dollink (for Darling): it’ sounds like Yiddish-English, but it begins to look like KK’s dialect is sui generis.
Today’s cultural news: annals of fame and accomplishment
April 23, 2014I heard it on NPR’s Morning Edition, who got it from the BBC, in this story: “Shakespeare a ‘cultural icon’ abroad”:
William Shakespeare is the UK’s greatest cultural icon, according to the results of an international survey released to mark the 450th anniversary of his birth [traditionally celebrated on April 23rd].
Five thousand young adults [note that: young adults are the arbiters of popular taste] in India, Brazil, Germany, China and the USA were asked to name a person they associated with contemporary UK arts and culture.
Shakespeare was the most popular response, with an overall score of 14%.
The result emerged from a wider piece of research for the British Council.
The Queen and [footballer] David Beckham came second and third respectively. Other popular responses included JK Rowling, Adele, The Beatles, Paul McCartney and Elton John.
Shakespeare, the Queen, and David Beckham: the Big Three. You wonder how the people surveyed understood the question.
Celebrity is an odd thing.
Three for today
April 18, 2014Three cartoons for today: a Dilbert, a Bizarro, and a Mother Goose and Grimm:
(#1)
(#2)
(#3)
Finnish stamp surprise
April 16, 2014(Almost all about art and sexuality.)
From Amanda Walker, a pointer to this Gawker posting about some forthcoming Finnish stamps: “Finland’s New Stamps are Drawings of Gay Bondage Porn” by Jordan Sargeant on April 15th. Two illustrations:
(#1)
(#2)
Neither image shows genital nudity, but both are intensely homoerotic, and it’s hard to imagine either one on a U.S. stamp. It’s not clear that either image is actually of gay bondage. #1 simply shows homoerotic imagery; #2 shows dominance and submission, and strongly suggests sadomasochism, but not (here) bondage. (Other ToF drawings do show bondage, some show male-male affection, and a fair number are humorous.)
On Touko Laaksonen (“Tom of Finland”) on this blog, see here.
(I’ve posted stronger stuff onToF on AZBlogX, but I despair of finding the links; the program LjSEEK rarely finds anything I search for. But here are two postings I’ve found:
8/6/10: The Tom of Finland action figure comes home (link)
4/19/11: Tom of Finland collages: (link) )
The stamps will go on into circulation in August of this year.
Surreal Zippy
April 5, 2014Zippy is routinely surreal, but today’s alludes more directly to surrealistic art than most of the strips:
This has the feel of a Magritte (and includes a recurrent Zippy theme, bowling and bowling balls). Plus, you get the pun in the title, “Saxual identity”.
