Frivolity for Valentine’s
From Steven Levine, this remarkable advertising image: Elsie the Cow, in a maid’s apron and nothing else — yielding a racy image — offering a very substantial breakfast. Smiling and dancing. More on...
View ArticleWomen’s comics
An AP story from the 16th: “Pa. exhibit traces history of female comic artists” by Kevin Begos: It took a war to let the country’s female comic book artists break character. A new exhibit at...
View ArticleWomen in comics
The Dork Tower cartoon (by John Kovalic) from the 24th (a bit fuzzy from being blown up): xx
View ArticleDecline and rise of gay
Geoff Nunberg writes with this Google Ngram: This shows the usage of gay (at least in the books Google samples) gently declining until roughly 1980 and then zooming up. The interpretation I’d provide...
View ArticleCommunicators
Two cartoons today — a Zits and a Bizarro — about communicating: (#1) (#2) In #1 we see the stereotype of the (male) teenager as extraordinarily taciturn, especially with his parents, but quite...
View ArticleThree more for Friday
Three cartoons today, on diverse topics: Calvin and Hobbes on explanations, Zits on means of communication (again), Bizarro on word play turning on ambiguity. (#1) Inventive but screwy explanation,...
View ArticleWhat happened to the dinosaurs?
Gillian Burlingham writes to say that her partner Sariya has figured out why dinosaurs went extinct: they were all “he” and “him” . Just read any kids book or watch any kids’ video on dinos and you’ll...
View ArticleFathers Day Five
An unusually big crop of cartoons this morning, including one (a Rhymes With Orange) on stereotypes about men’s tastes (for Fathers Day). Plus another Zits with the stereotype of chatty teenage girls;...
View ArticleName that product
Recent bulletins from the world of commerce: cricket chips, bed-hair mousse. Cricket chips. From the 5/25/14 New Scientist (p. 14), “More legs, more flavour” by Hal Hodson, about crickets: These are...
View ArticleTwo from Out
Yesterday, it was The Advocate; today, it’s another LPI publication, Out (or OUT) magazine, again with two pieces of interest for this blog in the latest (October 2014) issue: one on straightsplaining,...
View ArticleSaturday trio
In today’s comics crop, a Zits on language and the sexes (once again), a Rhymes With Orange with language play, and a Bizarro metacartoon on the visual conventions of the comics: (#1) (#2) (#3) Love...
View ArticleLeslie Feinberg, verbing, and pronouns
From The Advocate website on the 17th, this death notice: Transgender Pioneer and Stone Butch Blues [1993] Author Leslie Feinberg Has Died She was a pioneer in trans and lesbian issues, workers rights,...
View Articlehousedress
Posted on Facebook recently by Susan Fischer, this photo of her ca. age 3, in her blonde phase, with her mother. Her mother in a 1950s-era housedress, something you don’t see a lot of these days. (#1)...
View ArticleChatty girls (again)
Today’s Zits: Once again, the strip turns on the overwhelming chattiness of teenage girls. Or so it seemed to Jeremy.
View ArticleMasculinity in court
In last week’s New Scientist (1/3/15), a story by Dan Jones — “Booming voices are no boon for male lawyers” (in print), “Masculine-sounding lawyers less likely to win in court” (on-line) — about a...
View Articlemanspreading
Joe Dator’s January 9th New Yorker daily cartoon: (#1) Extreme manspreading on the New York subway. The MTA launched a campaign a while back to curb the practice: (#2) Meanwhile, the Word of the Year...
View ArticleGendered playthings
Today’s One Big Happy: (The strip appeared in my feed today, but it’s dated December 25th, in keeping with its content.) In any case, both Ruthie and her older brother Joe seem to be fully satisfied...
View ArticleAnonymously on the internet
Today’s Scenes From a Multiverse (on-line here) has the superhero Colonel UnitedStates woken from 70 years of sleep: Of course, not to their faces! Insults go behind people’s backs!
View ArticlePopeye, Bluto, and Danny Shanahan
Passed on by Tim Wilson on Facebook, this Danny Shanahan cartoon from 8/17/98, with Popeye and Bluto holding hands at a cocktail party, talking to a bemused woman: (#1) Background information: on...
View ArticleGender equity
Today’s Dilbert, one in a series: Wally [um, no, the CEO] explains to Catbert that height and gender determine how much people get paid and complains that Alice just refuses to understand this....
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