Two cartoons from the May 2026 Funny Times, both with variants of familiar theme. Some Bizarro word play exploiting and extending on the similarity between names of diseases and names of flowers (commented on long ago by James Thurber); and a bob twist on Husband in Bed With Oh My God! (aka Honey, This is Not What It Looks Like).
Bizarro fresh frontiers for disease names, /dájǝ/ division. The cartoon:
(#1) The Wayno / Piraro cartoon of 10/27/25 (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are 6 in this strip — see this this Page)
/dájǝ/ disease names prominently include diarrhea and diabetes. And for a flower name, dianella, common name flax lily. And then we branch out into diaphragm. diatribe, diatom, Dionysus. A decidedly mixed bag.
The bob advancement in cartoon consciousness. The cartoon:
(#2) The Bob Eckstein cartoon; note the judgmental hands on the woman’s hips, and her briefcase, all reinforcing the interpretation that she is the speaker’s wife, who has come home from work to discover her husband in bed with another man, and is not at all happy with the situation
And then bob gives the situation a further metatwist — it’s not (just) an advancement in social consciousness, but an advancement in cartoon consciousness, which can now show men, naked, in bed together.
The husband in bed with a male lover comes after a long line of surprising bed partners for him — all manner of creatures and inanimate objects, plus unlikely fictional characters (where’s Waldo now?). And these things are claimed to be not what they seem.
May 11, 2026 at 10:49 pm |
At the risk of asking a question which I ought to be able to research myself, what means the term “/dájǝ/ disease name,” which goes right over my head? (Usually a goog search answers all such questions, but I don’t think I can search for this term. I tried pasting it into the search bar and exactly one item was returned: this very blog post.)
May 12, 2026 at 3:18 am |
“/dájǝ/” is a transcription of pronunciation in IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet, overseen by an international committee), covering stuff spelled DIA- or DIO- or DIE- with accent on the first syllable. The slashes indicate a broad, phonemic transcription; square brackets […] are used for more detailed phonetic transcription.
May 12, 2026 at 12:22 pm
Thanks. I had the notion that you might have been using IPA (the ǝ gave it away), but the j sent my mind straight to “déjà” and led me completely astray. I finally realized this morning what /j/ really represents, and now I got it.