Comments (38) (Please sign in to comment)

1. 

   Linguist said, 4 months ago

   I knew the Pork Pie hat was a disguise !
2. 

   Night-Gaunt49 said, 4 months ago

   No comic toon characters are registered aliens, nor are they citizens.
3. 

   DylanThomas3.14159 said, 4 months ago

   “Breaking through the fourth wall” means addressing Doonesbury readers directly. Imagine that a play takes place in a single room four walls within the context of a larger theater. Remove one of these walls. The audience of the theater sits in seats facing the remaining three walls. Normally, both the actors and the audience pretend that the fourth wall, the separating wall, remains intact. However, the playwright (in this case Trudeau) may have the actors (in this case Jeff ‘n’ Zipper) address the audience (in this case you and me) directly. This kind of action is known in theater as “breaking through the fourth wall”.
4. 

   DylanThomas3.14159 said, 4 months ago

   Here “deporting” would involve Trudeau removing Jeff or Zip or both from the strip.
5. 

   Linguist said, 4 months ago

   @DylanThomas3.14159

   I have acted in productions where not only did we break through the fourth wall but got up out of the audience and went up on stage. A bit disconcerting for the people sitting around you, since we tried to disguise the fact that we were part of the production.
6. 

   Bruno Zeigerts said, 4 months ago

   @Linguist

   In Shakespeare’s times, involving the audience was a normal feature.
7. 

   Peabody-Martini said, 4 months ago

   “What the bloody hell is he on about?” That guy actually a Brit?
8. 

   DylanThomas3.14159 said, 4 months ago

   @Linguist

   As an audience member once, during intermission, I just stuck my hand through the fourth wall to set upright a beer bottle that had fallen over (stage floor about four feet above theater floor). I was immediately confronted by security and almost bounced out of the theater.
   

   
   At another (small, intimate) Shakespearian production where there was no raised stage, also during intermission, I walked through the fourth wall to examine a sword that seemed to be floating above the floor (it was actually hanging by extremely fine wires). Again I was confronted (this time by an actor) who said that it was dangerous to do that and I could be legally ejected if I didn’t stay away from the props (stay in front of the fourth wall).
9. 

   SUSAN NEWMAN said, 4 months ago

   @DylanThomas3.14159

   No great loss.
   Now, let’s get back to Alex and Drew, OK??
10. 

    vwdualnomand said, 4 months ago

    so, they are both a bunch of pommies.
11. 

    wecatsgocomics said, 4 months ago

    @vwdualnomand

    And right poofs as well, I shouldn’t wonder!
12. 

    rmacprivate said, 4 months ago

    @Peabody-Martini

    Might have something to do with Zonker’s English title. What is the relationship between Zonk and Zip?
13. 

    puddleglum1066 said, 4 months ago

    @Linguist, @DylanThomas3.14159: when the performers “break the fourth wall,” they’re not so much breaking it as pushing it from its normal place at the edge of the stage out to some flexible position in the audience. I have been to plays where I’ve been shaken down for spare change by the actors, or brought up on stage for a few minutes, but there is no actual interaction here—it’s just the audience member doing double duty as a prop.
14. 

    DylanThomas3.14159 said, 4 months ago

    @SUSAN NEWMAN

    If our own real live Babygirl had been my “arm candy” at Shakespeare’s “Henry V”, when I tried to look closeup at the “magically floating sword”, I probably wouldn’t have gotten such smackdown treatment. My gorgeous daughter was with and could have handled the dude with feminine ease and grace, but she was in the ladies’ powder at the moment.
    

    
    But your point is well taken, Susan, and I agree that Drews’ news will be more fun than Jeff ‘n’ Zip’s tweet-room palaver. Prettier than the dudes too.
    

    
    I LOVE Alex’s hair; it’s just plain sexier somehow than even Drew’s lady-on-the-castle-parapet locks are. True even though Drew may fit our societal expectations of “classical” beauty better than Alex does.
    

    
    Don’t get me wrong, Drew may attract more general "ooohs and aaahs and ohhhs of polite appreciation. But Alex grabs the raunch — if you know what I mean — while exuding pharamones like Old Faithful, and won’t let it go till the Lord Comes. Especially when she’s young and pregnant and bustier, and more flushed, and ditzier, and dependent on her dude.
    

    
    Or maybe Creator (read: evolution or emergence if you feel) just sneakily planned it all that way to keep Daddy round about during the critical months to help keep the forming fam together.
    

    
    Or maybe that’s just me. Oh, and Toggle the Hub too. Obviously.
    

    
    Any other males out there agree? Which lady — Drew or Alex — do you find more attractive at this moment?
15. 

    montessoriteacher said, 4 months ago

    4th wall = the old mixing it up with the audience move…
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