I need someone to explain this strip to me. Since it's listed in the 'rear view' category I assume it's some sort of butt joke, but for the life of me I can't figure it out.He's being sweet to his wife, telling her how much he loves her. Then he tells the obvious truth that he doesn't think about her all the time, considering it might be a little dangerous to do so while crossing the road. She takes this as a slight, and he apologizes by saying that his answer was just a "momentary lapse". The joke is that her expectations are a little absurd, but he's not going to argue the point.
Outsmarted by a mediocre comic strip. If only it was the first time.
Andy stands over her with one hand thrust casually into his trouser pocket and the other leaning against the wall. He’s looking Flo straight in the eye, and the smile on his open mouth suggests he thinks this is all pretty funny. “Look at it this way, honey,” he says. “I’m a man of few pleasures and one of them ‘appens to be knockin’ yer about.”Yeah, there it is. The strip is an anachronism, and the casual sexism and misogyny is certainly of its time. So we can't (fairly) criticise it in terms of modern mores.
I’d sketched this little man as a working class type wearing a cloth cap, so I thought Capp would be as good a name for him as any. Cap? Capp? Fred Capp, perhaps? Then, as an afterthought, I drew his face with the cap pulled down well over his eyes. [...] I thought about his character. What would he be like? Perhaps he would be a dead lumber. The type who is a right little handicap to his wife.SSSHOOOP!! i-tica-tica-tica-tica-tica-tica-tica-tica-tica-tica. . .
Handicap? .... Andy Capp! I had it!”
Isn't that a bobby hat in silhouette? Does Flo have a huge nose like that?The first pane has her in side view, where you can see her headscarf over her the back and top of her head, and hair sticking out the front.
Like his wife, a working-class man often seems to me almost physically recognisable. He tends to be small and dark, lined and sallow about the face by the time he has passed thirty. The bone-structure of the face and neck then shows clearly, with a suggestion of the whippet about it.Andy Capp's popularity must have had something to do with the fact that, even by 1957, this traditional working-class masculinity was on the way out (or feeling increasingly threatened). I suspect there was always an element of nostalgia about it; this was how the Mirror's readers remembered their parents, not necessarily how they themselves behaved or even wanted to behave.
There is often a kind of roughness in his manner which a middle-class wife would find insupportable. A wife will say how worried she is because something is amiss, and 'the mester will be mad' when he gets home; he may 'tell yer off' harshly or in a few cases may even 'bash' you, especially if he has had a couple of pints on the way to work. Or middle-aged wives will say to a younger one, ' 'e's good to yer, i'n't 'e?', meaning that he is not likely to become violent in word or act, or that he does not leave his wife alone almost every night, or that he will 'see 'er out' if she gets into difficulties with the housekeeping allowance. This is in part a heavy peasant crudeness in personal relations and expression, and clearly does not necessarily indicate a lack of affection, or a helplessness on the wife's part. The man who is able to growl is also able to defend; he has something of the cock about him. Hence, rough boys are admired; the head-shaking over them is as proud as it is rueful -- ' 'e's a real lad', people say.
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posted by tommasz at 6:36 AM on July 26, 2012 [5 favorites]