Much can be learned from a calculating study of cartoon animals behaving in ways that are natural to them. Here is a new example: “Tauberian identities and the connection to Wile E. Coyote physics,” Roberto Camassa and Richard M. McLaughlin, arXiv:2304.06127, 2023. (Thank to Mason Porter for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at […]
“Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) has well-known links with humor appreciation, such as enjoying jokes that target deviant groups, but less is known about RWA and creative humor production – coming up with funny ideas oneself.” To test the ground, a research team from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and the University of Pennsylvania, US, […]
SpongeBob SquarePants first made a public appearance in 1999, but it took quite some time for the emergence of a scholarly work which directly cited the character as a primary focus for study. This one, from 2005, is a likely candidate as the first : ■ A More Porous Postmodernity: Absurdity, Politics, Consumerism and the Cultural […]
Anthropologists, psychologists, and other ists can study these two advertisements for clues about the human condition: 1. Do It Yourself Cartoon Kit [background]: [vimeo]76495913[/vimeo] 2. PowerPencils (thanks to investigator Vaughn Tan for bringing this to our attention) [background]: BONUS: Bob Godfrey’s Do-It-Yourself Animation Show: Terry Gilliam BONUS: Artisanal pencil sharpening
Last night two of our editors were in the audience of a special event at the Coolidge Corner Cinema. Afterwards, one of them wrote (on Facebook) this appraisal: Last night, we went to a screening of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” The movie was preceded by a talk by Melissa Franklin, chair of the Harvard Physics […]
Bob Godfrey’s “Do It Yourself Cartoon Kit”, which pointed the way forwards and sideways for animators: Godfrey died recently. This (below) is a small piece of his cartoon documentary about the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel:
Growing Up with Scientist Mom is a new comic, created and drawn by Jesse Tahirali, who is also editor-in-chief of The Gazette, the University of Western Ontario’s student daily newspaper. Thanks to Jesse for letting us reproduce it here. [For a larger view, click on the image]
Doctors at James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough, UK were apparently so amused at treating a particular injury that they made it the butt of a joke, naming it after a cartoon character. This one can infer even from the title of their newly published study: “Popeye gluteus: Gluteus maximus avulsion following a road traffic collision,” […]
Point da Bio created this cartoon summary of the 2010 Ig Nobel Prize winners: