#54 - Gift means poison in German

I won't say anything about this except to point out the similarity with another cartoon combining toys and violence.

Merry Chrimbo.

Audience participation special

So it's long past time that Raczkowski's famous "Kurwa mać!" cartoon got an international treatment. However I can't decide what to put on the banner. Motherfucker? Fuck that? Damn it? Better to put up a blank one and let everyone make their own.

#53 - His master's voice

I don't know if Raczkowski is making a deeper point here beyond his usual theme of authority figures betraying the trust placed in them, but it doesn't matter. This is just flat out funny.

Language nerds may be interested to know that the man is literally saying "Wait here politely. Master will return shortly." That sounds odd in English so I changed it up. I wonder if any studies have been done on national differences in language used when speaking to animals.

#52 - please call with any information. any.

LOST                     FOUND

#51 - Election special

The original offers a choice between the Polish political parties PiS and Platforma. I've taken liberties with the translation to make the gag a little funnier for Anglophone readers who might be following the US election.

The original says, on the left, "The president is a cloddish rural unsophisticate" (there's no precise equivalent in English of the Polish word cham) and on the right "I love the president!" I believe it refers to a recent Polish president who was thought of as crude and boorish. I've attempted to give a version that works in English.

For other political Racz cartoons that can be read as comments on the US, or indeed almost any, election, see here and especially here.

#50 - Ordnung muss sein

"Go and put your toys in order."

In Polish literally "Go and make order with your toys." In English we'd probably say "Go clean up your toys", and the child here would then wash them, but Racz is using the Polish form to make a subtle political point: the child has learnt that order is imposed by violence. 

#49 - The upside of Hell

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Hell really exists.

And those of you who come here have a

really awful time.

But, it's still better than life...

...and better than in Heaven.

I'm not entirely certain what the joke is here. I'm guessing Racz is illustrating the fact that people lie, and people who mean you harm will lie about what's in store for you, even to the point of saying that what's good is worse than what's bad.

I put it up though because a Polish girl once said something similar to me. Her name was Alina and we were talking at the end of a small party in a friend's apartment in Upper Silesia. I was planning to spend the night in the largest room of the apartment, which was unheated. Alina said that it was too cold, that I'd freeze. I said "That’s okay, if I die I’ll be in Heaven and I won’t have any problems." Alina replied, totally deadpan, without skipping a beat:

"But you don’t know what kind of problems there are in Heaven. It could be worse."

That impressed me deeply. It could be worse in Heaven. I have sometimes thought of myself as pretty pessimistic but Alina's words demonstrate a degree of bleakness and hopelessness I can only regard with awe.

This comic reminds me of the Polish blackness Alina introduced me to, a level of despair that Americans have barely tasted but that Poles have marinated in for generations. "Hell could actually be the better deal - have you considered that?" And what if it is. What if it is.

#48 - Prospects

Woman: Surely you have a wife or a girlfriend?
Man: No! I'm a confirmed bachelor.

Woman: I don't know which is worse.


It's funny because it's true.

#46 - A bad dream

The crucifix on the radio implies that this couple are listeners of Radio Maryja. This station promotes paranoid thinking not all that dissimilar from the man's dream, which includes most of the bugbears of the contemporary Polish reactionary worldview: Jews, Germans, gays, and Polish land being owned by foreigners. Certain elements of the US political scene have similar nightmares.

#47 - Vacation plans

A common sight in some Polish parks, indeed in parks worldwide, including those in my city: drunken unemployed men with nothing to do and nowhere to go. What do they do on holiday weekends?

A Pole writes:

"Długi weekend" includes a pun. It is long and boring for these eternally jobless fellows. The phrase "długi weekend", however, is commonly used now by everybody, working or not working class heroes.
 It started with a several days break in May, which even turned into the whole week break.
 It is connected with the Working Class Day, followed by the Day of National Flag and Trzeci Maja, as you probably know, Święto Konstytucji in Poland.

 People prolong their holiday taking sick leaves or asking for the free week where they work. Such long weekends, sometimes lasting the whole week, happen now also in August when we've got Święto Maryjne,hi,hi, on 15th August. The third long weekend or week may happen on 1st November and around that day, when people go to the cemeteries around Poland.
  One long weekend is chased by another, it is the subject of idiotic conversations, it is discussed in the media, blablabla.
  Now, the funny side is that it is posh to go abroad for such a long weekend, especially in May or August.A small number of people can afford to do it and there's the rub.
 The people who want to show off and go for the whole week to Egypt, for example.
 They spend their time there, imprisoned in one of the hotels in Hurghada, swimming, picking up boys, observing teenagers and children, eating, drinking, taking massages, puking and farting, not knowing about the outside world at all.
 Then, relaxed to the extreme, they return, ready to meet such miserable creatures like me, who don't go to those blessed holiday resorts and spas, and tell them stories about the Arabian Nights and comforting them that their time is gonna come.

#45 - Temptress

#44 - English lesson

Another comment on the Anglophone invasion of Polish culture.