Frazz by Jef Mallett for October 28, 2019

Interesting. I know the origin of the word “dunce” in medieval philosophy, yet I’ve never heard of this guy Reilly before now.

Hot dog for lunch then, Caulfield?

I dunno. Lends a certain air of ordinariness for winter in northern climes. See folks wearing something similar in news features.

Feeling extraordinarily clueless. What am I gonna find when I visit Google U?

A teacher would know all abou that, I suppose.

I’m the proud owner of 2 ear flap hats! Can’t beat them when out with the sno-blower.

I had to search Bing. Caulfield’s reading habits are wat too esoteric for me.

Once again, Mr Mallett sends me to the reference section, as it were. So, I’ve already learned something today.And good for Mr Spaetzle!

If he hadn’t thought it up yet, why is he wearing the Reilly hat and how could Mr. S know? Seems like sort of a time paradox here.

New one on me. Nerdy cool……….

Perhaps the rest of the school isn’t so Swift…

Leaving aside that if Frazz is set in the upper-midwest, that cap hardly qualifies as a “costume”. I think Jef threw a balked pitch at us.

Apropos of Caulfield’s Halloween costume, the Folio Society just released a gorgeous edition of Confederacy of Dunces. https://www.foliosociety.com/usa/a-confederacy-of-dunces.html

It is a reference to the main character (and I do mean character) in the novel A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

Oh god. Here come the nightmares.

Inspiration to read A Confederacy of Dunces, perhaps?

If I recall correctly from a couple of decades ago, A Confederacy of Dunces is at least a PG-13 level read if not an R. Interesting that the Frazz cast of characters take it as a matter of course that an elementary school student would have read it.

Thanks! Haven’t seen an Ignatius J. Reilly reference in way too long.

Blog PostsFrazz15 hrs ·

Ignatius J. Reilly is one of literature’s great pathetic characters. I’d ditch the qualifier — he’s one of literature’s great characters, period — but he’s so pathetic that you can’t take it out of the description. And one of Ignatius J. Reilly’s signature identifiers is his ear-flapped hunting hat.

So it would be easy to say that he single-handedly ruined a perfectly good hat style for the masses. Except, of course (a) earflap hats were already kind of goofy, which, rather than making them so, that’s why the author employed one; (b) earflap hats are so functionally wonderful that devotees of the style don’t care what it makes them look like, and © way too few of the masses have read A Confederacy of Dunces.

I looked it up, wish I hadn’t