Two recent One Big Happy strips in which the analysis of words into parts plays a role: one from 10/14 with a Ruthian eggcorn (treating archive as ark + hive); and one from 10/23 in which Joe puzzles over the consequences of appreciating that nobody is no + body.
Archive for the ‘Linguistics in the comics’ Category
OBH analyses
November 21, 2018Revisiting 21: registering Mr. Banner
November 19, 2018The Wayno/Piraro Bizarro for 5/29/18:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 4 in this strip — see this Page.)
Well, a green man would be voting for the Green Party.
But the strip is funnier if you recognize this particular green man as The Hulk, the alter ego of Dr. (Robert) Bruce Banner — in an exeptionally tractable and reasonable mood.
Teddy Bears’ Picnic Day
November 17, 2018On Facebook today, Anneli Meyer Korn posted this Bizarro cartoon from 11/17/14:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 2 in this strip — see this Page.)
I was moved to declare November 17th Teddy Bear Picnic Day, in honor of Anneli and her husband Peter, but it turns out that (by whatever obscure mechanism these things happen) July 10th is already taken for this occasion, according to the Days of the Year site.
Well, of course, if you don’t know the song, you won’t find the cartoon particularly funny. (Suppose that the teddy bear’s message were “I’m sorry, the teddy bears are conferencing at Davos today”. That would be absurd, and so to some degree humorous, but nowhere near as funny as “I’m sorry, today is the day the teddy bears have their picnic”.)
Shake, shake, shake that death rattle
November 15, 2018Today’s Calvin and Hobbes re-play has the two protagonists engaged in a heavy game of Cowboys and Indians:
(#1)
A play on two senses of rattle, denoting either a sound or a thing that makes a sound.
Bite me, Count Bendix!
November 15, 2018Today’s Zippy, set in the Bendix Diner in Hasbrouck Heights NJ (in Bergen County, in the NJ suburbs of NYC, near Passaic), celebrates grilled or fried ham and cheese sandwiches:
(#1)
Arousing the beast
November 7, 2018In today’s comics feed, a One Big Happy that requires a double dose of pop-cultural moon knowledge to understand:
(#1)
A defiant gesture, a bit of lycanthropic folklore.
Sweet stuff
November 1, 2018Three candy bulletins from the last month: the news (which came to me from Scott Schwenter on Facebook, reporting exultantly from Pickerington OH) that Trix Fruity Shapes (from General Mills) are back on the shelves; today’s Wayno & Piraro Bizarro cartoon with cotton gin ‘gin(-flavored) cotton candy’; and the Sunday 10/28 NYT Magazine Candy Issue.
Revisiting 20: X Places
November 1, 2018The Scenes From a Multiverse of 10/9, entitled #NOTALLPLACES:
A riff on Michael Schur’s sitcom The Good Place, with Kristen Bell (as Eleanor, apparently sent wrongly to the place after her deathGood Plae modality is harsh.) and Ted Danson (as Michael, the designer of the place). Also a comment on social media (Twitter vs. Facebook). And of course on the nature of reality and our perceptions of it.
A reading
October 31, 2018Posted on Facebook, this Peter Steiner cartoon from 2016:
(#1) From a 1/28/16 posting on Steiner’s blog
The humor turns on an ambiguity of the verb read, and also on a specialization of the derived nominal reading to a very culture-specific event.
(Then some words on the artist, who now has a Page on this blog.)