Comic Turn

Somehow, reading the Sunday Times on the Internet just isn't the same. There's nothing like picking up that fat wad of foolishness, flicking through for the old favourites, opening the middle page for the third segment of a five-part instalment of a biography of Count Auguste Von Brockdorff de Languistine-Medoc, Knight of Malta and cartographer, quickly scanning through the consumer column and Adrian Muscat Inglott's amateurish cartoon, doing the trivia quiz, and so forth. The high points, of course, are the cartoons, which you have to read in the correct sequence. To begin with Islanders would mean spoiling the best too soon. Admittedly, today's vignette was not of the best, but I assume one gets the general idea.


After the exhilaration of Islanders, which it must be said has been going down hill since the late nineties, you have to wean yourself off with a dose of Nalizpelra. Poor old Nalizpelra has stopped even trying. Nonetheless, in tribute to his talent, I have created my own cartoon, which really lets Alfred Sant have it with both barrels.

And finally it's One Family, which subverts all the standard rules of cartoon humour. Garry Larson and Scott Adams have nothing on this Gorg Mallia; Malta's own Doonesbury. It is a shame that today's strip does not follow the usual formula, whereby a younger character is conversing with an older world-weary wag, or some variation on that theme. Expectations are trumped and the satirist's scalpel wounds those who need it.
Consider today's vignette. In the first frame, the set-up seems pretty unpromising, though the seasoned fan will sense the imminence.
"... this just in ...", a young newsreader announces.
Hmmm ... what can it be, wonders the reader?
"There's been a drop of rain."
A drop. Just one drop? I'm not sure about this Gorg. I think I might have a try at the quiz. Oh no, go on, let's keep going.
"All motorists be prepared..."
For what? Ah, the masterful weave of suspense is majestic to behold. Now, when you watch a Marx Brothers film, say, you know there are going to be jokes, but you don't know when. They don't tell you before you start watching. You know they're coming, but when? And when they hit you it's like... well, it's like...
"… for traffic delays of up to two hours".
Because the rain makes the roads impassable. Genius! Absolute genius!