Arnold Zwicky's Blog

From Xopher Walker recently, this cartoon (of 1/11/90) from Matt Groening’s Life in Hell strip:

(#1)

Akbar and Jeff’s sexuality was the subject of a number of strips, including five posted here on 2/5/13 (“Jeff and Akbar explore their sexuality”), but this one wasn’t in that set. A notable feature of their interaction here is the role of the fez in indicating arousal: the tassel becomes erect.

On the fez, from Wikipedia:

The fez (Turkish …), as well as its equivalent, the tarboosh (Arabic …), is a felt hat of two types: either in the shape of a truncated cone made of red felt, or a short cylinder made of kilim fabric, both usually with a tassel attached to the top. The tarboosh is of ancient Greek origin and the modern fez, which is similar, owes much of its development and popularity to the Ottoman era [in which it became a symbol of egalitarianism and modernity, significantly supplanting the many types of turban].

Here’s a silly fez of the first type (appropriate for Life in Hell), from Izzys Party Store:

(#2)

As for Akbar and Jeff, it’s all about the fezzes. Desire is indeed mysterious.

This entry was posted on August 20, 2014 at 4:08 am and is filed under Clothing, Gender and sexuality, Linguistics in the comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.