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For National Cartoonists Day
This morning I discovered that yesterday was not only Cinco de Mayo, but also National Cartoonists Day. In honor of the occasion, three cartoons for today. Then some account of Cartoonists Day, which...
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Allusions, playful variations, snowclones, themes, subjects, memes, tropes,...
I recently posted (for the second time, on April 29th, here with reference to restrictive vs. non-restrictive modification in a letter to the editor in the NYT) on the playful allusion “A comma,...
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Party of five
Five cartoons from recent days. Not one of them seems to have anything to do with (US) Mothers Day (but maybe tomorrow, on the day itself, Mom will surface). A daydreaming Jeremy in Zits; a Calvin and...
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On the verge of a collective
The cartoon below came to me from several sources on the net (I don’t know its ultimate source): Crucial background: murder is a “term of venery”, a collective noun used with very specific referents,...
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Five for Friday
Five items, several of which lead to more complex topics: a Harry Bliss cartoon that I caught, reprinted, in the Funny Times for May; a Zippy on art forgery; a One Big Happy with a kid eggcorn; a Zits...
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Piercing
(Not much about language.) It starts with a postcard from Xopher Walker, a photograph by an artist I was unfamiliar with, Paul Blanca (for maximum confusion, there’s also a photographer Paul Branca,...
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Three more diverse
Three recent cartoons on divergent subjects: a Bizarro with language play turning on ambiguity; a Scenes From a Multiverse with metacommentary by the characters; and another classic Watergate...
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Doc and Raider
A recent card from Chris Ambidge with a Doc and Raider: one in a series about travails with their cat. D&R is a (a) gay, (b) Canadian (c) cartoon, often touching as well as funny. A couple samples...
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Three for Memorial Day
For (U.S.) Memorial Day — today — three diverse cartoons, none of them about war or memorializing troops: A PHD Comics on ambiguity; a Doonesbury on vegetable (parallel to animal) language; and a...
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What are they?
Two recent items that challenge the borders of categories in the world of art, literature, and humor: another Jane Austen quote (yes, Chris Ambidge keeps sending them on); and an e-card (passed on by...
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May-June turnover
A One Big Happy from yesterday (May 25), on conversational organization; and then three from this morning’s (June 1st) crop: a Bizarro with an ambiguity introduced by truncation; yet another...
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Briefly noted: two-language pun pairs
On May 31st, Xopher Walker, listening to a live opera broadcast on WFMT, groused about the tedium of Wagner’s Parsifal. Ned Deily noted a different radio broadcast (BR Klassik) of the more pleasing Die...
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Briefly noted: note from a subculture
A business card (two-sided, mounted here on an ornamental card) from an establishment in British Columbia, picked up by a friend visiting there: a private place for men to enjoy sexual connection....
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Ralph Steadman
I start with today’s Doonesbury (a replay from some years ago), continuing the story of Duke’s coming out of a drug coma: (#1) In the previous installment, Duke was hallucinating a talking lizard...
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Anemone pun
Today’s Mother Goose and Grimm: Mistaken anemone for mistaken identity. Phonologically distant, but interpretable because mistaken identity is an idiom, a formulaic expression, which is, moreover,...
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More holidays and anniversaries
Here in the U.S., it’s July 4th: Independence Day. So yesterday was, I suppose, Independence Eve. The 2nd was a notable anniversary, of the signing of the (U.S.) Civil Rights Act (of 1964, so that’s a...
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Cartooning at the diner
Today’s Zippy, with Zippy and Griffy on cartoon styles and men’s fashions: (#1) And, in the third panel, a diner — which turns out to be identifiable, and leads us to some surprising places (Mercury...
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dorkage
Today’s Zits, with jocular morphology and some (Wurst-style) phallicity as well: Jeremy for Weenie World! Then there’s dorkage. Quinion’s affixes site on the noun-forming suffix -age: [Old French,...
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A Sunday quartet
Four cartoons from yesterday’s crop: a Zippy in a nameless diner; a Doonesbury on rumors; a One Big Happy on the spread of expressions and speech styles from the media; and another Bizarro collection...
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Saturday monster puns
Through what I assume is fortunate accident, two cartoons this morning with puns on the names of movie monsters: a Bizarro with “Creature from the black legumes” (black beans) and a Mother Goose and...
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