Arnold Zwicky's Blog

A comic poem and a cartoon for October.

October I, the poem: falling leaves. And of course death. Brian Bilston on Facebook 10/3:

(#1) [Bilston:] Happy National Poetry Day to all those who celebrate. This year’s theme is Play so today I’m going to share a few poems which play with form or language, starting with this appropriately autumnal one

On National Poetry Day. From Wikipedia:

National Poetry Day is a British campaign to promote poetry, including public performances. Annually, on the first Thursday of October, events, readings and performances take place across the UK

The musical accompaniment to the cartoon. From Wikipedia:

“Autumn Leaves” is the English-language lyrical adaptation of the French song “Les Feuilles mortes” (“The Dead Leaves”) composed by Joseph Kosma in 1945. The original lyrics were written by Jacques Prévert in French, and in 1950 Johnny Mercer wrote the English lyrics. An instrumental recording by pianist Roger Williams was a number one best-seller in the US Billboard charts of 1955 [AZ: in my freshman / sophomore years in high school, so this recording is engraved in my memory].

Since its introduction “Autumn Leaves” has become a jazz standard, and it is one of the most recorded songs by jazz musicians. More than a thousand commercial recordings are known to have been released by mainstream jazz and pop musicians.

October II, the cartoon: Halloween. The Wayno / Piraro Bizarro strip for 10/4:

(#2) The clown reaper, the Grim Reaper with (parts of) a clown costume (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are 6 in this strip — see this Page)

This is a double meme — the clown meme plus the reaper meme, but clearly it shows a clown reaper — a reaper, come for his victim, who has dressed as a clown to take the edge off the experience — rather than a reaper clown — a clown who has come to entertain the householder and for some reason has chosen to present himself as Death personified, with hands and feet reduced to bones, carrying a scythe, and wishing the householder BONE VOYAGE, a skeletal pun on bon voyage (wishing him a good journey, in this case to the afterlife). And when the householder greets the apparition at his door with the plaintive you’re just making it worse, he’s recognizing his visitor as Death decked out in bits of a clown costume to soften the blow of the scythe’s mortal stroke.

This entry was posted on October 5, 2025 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Comic conventions, Events and occasions, Holidays, Linguistics in the comics, Music, My life, Poetry, Signs and symbols. 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.