#27 - Roots

Teacher: Yes, we should be proud of the place where we were born. But what else should we be proud of?

Pupil: The date...

#26 - The problem with religion

                                      Boy: Why isn't the Church as good as the Lord God?

                                      Father: Because it exists.

#25 - The end of celebrity

This is one of my favourites. Some famous person gets out of a limo and walks up a red carpet, and the crowd doesn't care. They are utterly unfazed by his fame. The guy with the cigarette even refuses to shake his hand. And life goes on.

I don't know if this is a reference to an event in Poland or not. I read it broadly, as a general dismissal of the cult of celebrity. I hope it comes true. I hope that widespread piracy, spontaneous street revolts and an increase in the popularity of amateur culture combine to destroy the Hollywood/record industry star system once and for all.

The attitude of the people in the cartoon is especially needed in the United States, where there tends to be a slavish attitude towards anyone who's ever been on television.

Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down.

#24 - Serious game

The Adventures of Petey

Girl: Let's play house!

Boy: Sure!

Boy: I'm going to my buddy's.

#23 - Dog hypocrisy

Sign: WE DEMAND TOUGHER PENALTIES FOR ANIMAL ABUSE

(does not apply to the chasing of cats)

#22 - WTF

The sentence in the first panel means "Give, I'll grind (the grain), you rest". It is the earliest recorded example of the Polish language, written in a monastic history book in the late thirteenth century. (Details here.) It is a phrase known to almost all Poles.

The joke is that the man, whose short hair identifies him as a lower-class, uneducated person, not only can't understand his own culture, but expresses his incomprehension in crude foreign slang. Cultural colonization by the Anglosphere continues apace.

#21 - Cow thought

Not much to say about this one except that I find it gets funnier each time I look at it.

#20 - Left and Right

Man with microphone: Who do you love more, daddy or mommy?

As mentioned in the previous post, Raczowski often portrays amoral drunks and rigid pietists. Here he puts them together to draw a humorous contrast. The child, as so often in his work, is put on the spot. This is one of the first cartoons of his I encountered.

Raczkowski must have liked this image because he used it again:

Child: What's that mean, "left wing" and "right wing"?

I have no idea which version came first. Note that the clouds are different. This version makes the point explicitly political: from a simple, honest point of view, that of a child, the left are selfish slobs, the right, crazed religionists. Again, a joke made about Polish culture that is relevant in many, many other countries.

#19 - Feast of the Three Drunks

There is a Polish custom on Epiphany in which people chalk the letters "K+M+B" and the year on their front door as a sign of religious faith for the coming year. The letters stand for the traditional names of the three Magi who visited Christ in the manger: Kaspar, Melchior and Balthazar. Raczkowski contrasts the pious person with his neighbour, who has chalked instead the formula for ethanol (drinking alcohol) on his door. Portraying piety and alcoholism as two dominant tendencies in Polish society is a familiar Raczkowskian trope, and the next post will feature one of his funniest renditions.

#18 - The birth of God

#17 - Toiletvision

#16 - Man hands on misery to man

This Be The Verse

by Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don't have any kids yourself.