Brought to my attention on Facebook by Chris Hansen, this grotesque Bizarro from 2013:
(#1)
A real test in cartoon understanding, this one. Some readers on Facebook never got it, many (including me) took a few moments to figure it out.
Archive for the ‘Linguistics in the comics’ Category
In the rubber room
March 10, 2018“If it’s made of rubber we have it”: today’s Zippy:
(#1) United Rubber Supply Co., 54 Warren St., NYC
scratch and sniff card
March 10, 2018The One Big Happy from February 10th:
The sign says (but with reduced and):
SCRATCH AND SNIFF CARDS
Is that to be parsed as conjoined imperatives — you are to scratch and to sniff cards — or as an NP describing some cards — these are cards you can scratch and sniff, cards for scratching and sniffing?
The scythe in the casket
March 9, 2018The cartoon caption contest in the latest (March 12th) New Yorker:
The Grim Reaper laid to rest.
Annals of casual speech
March 9, 2018The One Big Happy from February 9th:
in other words > nudder words. Part of this is just ordinary stuff in connected casual speech. Then there’s the [d] for standard [ð] in other.
Aria 51
March 7, 2018Yesterday’s Rhymes With Orange, with a challenge to cartoon understanding:
(#1)
For basic appreciation of the cartoon, you need to recognize that the event in it is a stage performance by a singer with accompanying trio; to recognize that all the figures in the cartoon are conventional space aliens from popular culture; to know that an aria is a song in an opera; and to know that Area 51 is a highly classified area in Nevada associated in popular culture with the investigation of extraterrestrials.
Then you can groan at the aria vs. area pun.
Your appreciation might then be heightened by knowing about the scifi movie The Fifth Element and the alien opera singer Diva Plavalaguna in it.
Yet another WaynoPOP
March 5, 2018My 8/4/17 posting “WaynoPOPs” had a set of POPs (phrasal overlap portmanteaus) from Waynovision cartoons, with a passing a reference by Wayno to the POP Forbidden Froot Loops. Now today, a Bizarro/Wayno collaboration realizing the portmanteau visually:
(If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 2 in this strip — see this Page.)
Two memic cartoons
March 4, 2018For today: a Zippy playing on the Walk Into Bar joke format and a Bizarro that combines three cartoon memes: the Psychiatrist, Multiple Personality, and Batman:
(#1)
(#2) For National Multiple Personality Day, March 5th
(If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 4 in this strip — see this Page.)
Familiar cartoon themes: Waldo and sugar bombs
March 3, 2018In today’s cartoon feeds, a new Bizarro/Wayno collaboration, with another Waldo strip, and a Calvin and Hobbes replay (from 3/5/88), with another in a series of sugar bomb cereal strips:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page.)
(#2)
Call me by your name
March 1, 2018The Mother Goose and Grimm, from February 21st:
(#1)
A joke playing on use and mention: Grimmy mentions the name of the Oscar-nominated movie Call Me by Your Name, but Ralph understands him to be using the expression call me your your name, so he calls Grimmy Ralph.
That leads us to the movie and so to a thicket of issues about language, sexuality, gender, and the law.