{"id":506,"date":"2009-07-10T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-10T18:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/2009\/07\/helpful-answers-to-stupid-questions\/"},"modified":"2009-07-10T13:30:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-10T18:30:00","slug":"funny-answers-to-stupid-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/?p=506","title":{"rendered":"Helpful Answers to Stupid Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_2v-Vwo5ul9Y\/SleMtNrGVGI\/AAAAAAAAAvc\/WlDxayIaNp4\/s1600-h\/vice_cover.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 308px; height: 400px;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_2v-Vwo5ul9Y\/SleMtNrGVGI\/AAAAAAAAAvc\/WlDxayIaNp4\/s400\/vice_cover.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\"id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356904990172927074\" \/><\/a>As you know, I&#8217;ve been <a href=\"http:\/\/comicscomicsmag.blogspot.com\/2009\/07\/tossing-around-old-medicine-ball.html\">trying to answer<\/a> an important historical conundrum: Where did <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2008\/03\/28\/arts\/20080330_FOLD_IN_FEATURE.html\">Al Jaffee<\/a> get the idea of depicting fish skeletons whenever he draws someone vomiting? After a long and mostly fruitless quest, eventually one of my correspondents suggested that I just ask the Master himself. So I did, mentioning Will Elder and the James Ensor drawing from <a href=\"http:\/\/comicscomicsmag.blogspot.com\/2009\/07\/tossing-around-old-medicine-ball.html\">last post<\/a>, as well as commenter BVS&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/comicscomicsmag.blogspot.com\/2009\/07\/tossing-around-old-medicine-ball.html?showComment=1247153387113#c8708314900430044248\">theory about the Dutch fish<\/a>. Very graciously, Jaffee answered me via e-mail:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As to vomiter&#8217;s discharges I can&#8217;t say how I came to include such things as fish\/chicken bones and even false teeth (see wretching jackal in NATIONAL PERSPIRERER article&#8230;MAD #??). My childhood pal Will Elder and I shared a similar cartooning sense of humor and certain bodily functions we found funny simply because the media and refined people generally tended to make believe they didn&#8217;t exist. <\/p>\n<p>The Dutch people do indeed swallow small fish whole. I was on a Mad trip across the Zuyder Zee some years ago and for lunch we dipped into a barrel, pulled out salted fish and (YECCH) swallowed whole. We did not pull the bones out. I guess the fish were small and aged with soft bones. This is a Dutch delicacy. <\/p>\n<p>The drawing with guys upchucking huge fish is wild. I wonder if it&#8217;s some sort of 19th century gag (I&#8217;d gag too with a whale that size in my gut).<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, thanks for the info and I hope I answered your question.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Dan tells me this is possibly the greatest post I will ever publish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As you know, I&#8217;ve been trying to answer an important historical conundrum: Where did Al Jaffee get the idea of depicting fish skeletons whenever he draws someone vomiting? After a long and mostly fruitless quest, eventually one of my correspondents suggested that I just ask the Master himself. So I did, mentioning Will Elder and the James Ensor drawing from last post, as well as commenter BVS&#8217;s theory about the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[30,383,614,722,828,1355,1374],"class_list":["post-506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-jaffee","tag-dutch-eating-habits","tag-ensor","tag-journalism-in-action","tag-mad","tag-vomit","tag-elder"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}