One of the common paradoxes examined in old postcards is the conflict between people who go fishing in hopes of getting a bite, and then being shocked when they get one. Dogs and mosquitoes are the usual sources of discontent, but the world of aquatic life offers creatures who get logical revenge on the people who came down in hopes of eating TTHEM.
The water dwellers, though, understand their jobs on comic postcards, and do not limit their attention to anglers. Go for a swim or a bathe or a dip or a paddle (or any of the other words we came up with over the years for a watery break from routine) and you risked the attentions of clawed critters.
My research into this topic was originally aimed at checking the passage of time in these mailable cartoons. I assumed, incorrectly, that those postcards which involved threatened or actual damage to a vacationer’s toes were the originals.
The inventory here at fine old joke central refused to give me data to support the idea that toe-nipping belonged on the earlier postcards. I assumed that artists moved away from the era, as in the card above with the dance of the lobster and the fat man, when the less controversial parts of the body were the center of attention….
To a more libertine time when the same jokes could be applied elsewhere.
But (and I use that word with some trepidation) it turned out that the move up the anatomy to other obvious targets started much earlier. There is some evidence that the toe snap and the butt bite developed together, and may simply have depended on whether the artist could draw feet.
After all, the audience is going to get the point even if you have only the most modest ability to draw the human form (observe how this artist has saved trouble by keeping most of these folks out of frame or underwater.)
Not that scientific accuracy in drawing the assailant is particularly required, at that. (What a determined crustacean! DO they actually float around like that just to tickle swimmers? I always assumed they crawled along the bottom…okay, let’s just move on.)
I do not have access to every postcard ever printed, of course, but how come I’ve never seen a water creature defending its territory by nipping a finger? Or a knee? Perhaps toes and tushes are the only parts of the body that cartoonists considered especially funny for biting.
Look, there’s an exception to every rule.
Blogsy Babbles 