Arnold Zwicky's Blog

The 12/11 Zippy cartoon contemplates fear of death on a New Yorker desert island:

(#1) No, no, the fount of desert island gags is inexhaustible!

The strip is self-referential: Zippy reflects on his being in a cartoon. It is a Desert Island cartoon, and with its reference to the fear of dying, it alludes to another cartoon meme, the Grim Reaper.

Zippy has, in a sense, been here before: in my 5/12/12 posting “Gag cartoons”:

(#2) Again, bemoaning the dearth of Desert Island gags

An earlier, explicit,  combination of Desert Island and Grim Reaper, in my 6/27/19 posting “The Desert Island Grim Reaper”:

(#3) A Rhymes With Orange cartoon

Then a few bonus items. First, another combination of Grim Reaper and Psychiatrist (I have posted others):

(#4) From the (apparently now defunct) cartoon Closet & Home in 9/14

Meanwhile, Grim Reaper cartoons are something of a specialty in Bizarro. Here are two that haven’t already been posted:

(#5) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in this 7/2/17 cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 2 in this strip — see this Page.)

(#6) Dan Piraro says there are 4 of his symbols in this Wayno/Piraro Bizarro (from 8/3/18)

This entry was posted on December 13, 2020 at 8:50 am and is filed under Abbreviation, Comic conventions, 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.