Both Firkin's and Stephen's interpretations make sense. My own view is that readers eventually arrive at Stephen's interpretation (or something very like it) only after a complicated emotional journey.

It goes like this:

Readers look at panel 1 and then at panel 2 and understand them to be saying single women show lots of cleavage cos they want to attract sexual partners but married women don't show lots of cleavage as they don't want to attract sexual partners.

They think they've understood the first two panels but then they come to panel 3 and it's clearly saying happily married women don't show any cleavage as they don't want to attract sexual partners.

Confusion sets in, because panels 2 and 3 are very different and therefore can't be saying the same thing - so what is panel 2 actually saying?

Then it hits them. They realise panel 2 is saying married women who show any cleavage at all are looking for sexual partners.

At that point, all cleavage-displaying wives are shocked. The faithful ones question their inner desires and the unfaithful ones are horrified to learn that their (relatively modest) cleavage display is actually a confession of adultery for all the world to see.

And what about the husbands of cleavage-displaying wives? What will they be thinking?

Could be last week.

I see...so the joke is that women don't enjoy sex and men do...wasn't there an ancient Greek story about this? Someone was granted the gift to be both a man and a woman, and pronounced that women enjoyed it much more...can't be bothered to look it up.

Quote: alison blunderland @ 19th August 2022, 8:03 AM

.... readers eventually arrive ... a complicated emotional journey.

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Interesting take and fair point. But as this was a cartoon, the joke needs to be instant, so surly the hypocrisy of what we think and say is the humour ?

Quote: beaky @ 19th August 2022, 12:44 PM

I see...so the joke is that women don't enjoy sex and men do...wasn't there an ancient Greek story about this? Someone was granted the gift to be both a man and a woman, and pronounced that women enjoyed it much more...can't be bothered to look it up.

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Pygmalion ? I don't think sex is about sex. I read a summary of diaries from people who derived little pleasure from sex, asexual men, Victorian women who saw it as a means to have children. The enslaved. The joy of the art is surely about mutual connection, freedom of expression (unless you're Narcissus) ? Or maybe I'm mistaken. I was in Brighton last week, so much free expression, never seen it so busy, my favorite city. Never smelt so much narbis in my life, I might open a cake shop there.

Quote: Firkin @ 19th August 2022, 2:40 PM

as this was a cartoon, the joke needs to be instant, so surly the hypocrisy of what we think and say is the humour.

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I agree that being funny quickly is almost always the best way to go for a comedy person and the cartoon can be seen to be about hypocrisy and double standards.

Clever.

Larson cornered the market in cow jokes.

Quote: alison blunderland @ 20th August 2022, 10:33 AM

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These guys always hide symbols in their cartoons.
They have meanings, apparently. https://www.bizarro.com/secret-symbols

Cool. Giles did the same , just after the WW2. Wonder who was the first cartoonist to do it ?

Quote: beaky @ 20th August 2022, 9:47 AM

Larson cornered the market in cow jokes.

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Yes, and this is my favourite from a few days ago I posted.........................

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 28th July 2022, 9:46 AM

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Quote: Firkin @ 20th August 2022, 12:50 PM

Cool. Giles did the same , just after the WW2. Wonder who was the first cartoonist to do it ?

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Fascinating.
Didn't realise he was a bit of a Lefty.
Apparently he used to do terrible things to Rupert the Bear (in his cartoons, of course) as an act of defiance against his bosses at the Express.

A gruff no-nonsense man I recall, but was always polite when he came in our photographic shop. We repaired a couple of his cameras.