Help! Has there been a prominent Franken in the news? Not Al? And what does that have to do with bad math?
Okay I tried a little searching, but Franken and Math, while it does turn up a story with Al Franken, it was from 2012. https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/02/gIQAI63kqS_blog.html
Comics I Don't Understand 
Just a conflation of “frankenstein” and “frankincense.”
And to add to the previous comment, I suspect the artist was looking for a visual notion of “making sense” and so turned to math.
Are the editors really unaware of Mary Shelley’s gothic classic?
Al Franken? What? I see it as the Frankenstein monster doing math/algebra, “making sense of it.” Frankensense. Very clever. Falco’s work is very often quite cerebral.
@Powers, well of course, but you might see what makes it look puzzling if you trace the causality in the other direction. “Franken has been doing math for politics or something. Let’s make fun of that. Get the name in by using the figure (and name) of Frankenstein’s monster.” Then it doesn’t look like an answer, just a part of the question if we get to Frankenstein from Franken and still don’t say how we got to Franken.
I follow Mitch’s explanation. But it assumes there must be some topical reference. And forgets that Halloween is upon us, so Frankenstein does become topical!
For the people saying the apparent math is what gives us the “sense” – well maybe, but it would be more convincing if the numbers and letters were more like correct arithmetic even.
This is an Oy, not a CIDU. Just a groaner on “frankincense.”
But frankincense is the name of the resin
Certainly not to be mistaken for Frankenmuth, Michigan.
Frankenstein’s creature was quite intelligent, learning language by watching a family teach a foreigner their language, and learning to read by reading Plutarch’s “Lives”, Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and Goethe’s “Werther”. He could probably do advanced math.
I think any reference to Al Franken would be a bit of a reach, considering he’s not been in the news much lately, and it’s nearly Halloween, the traditional time to mention Frankenstein’s Monster.
I don’t understand why you’d start with an assumption that this was a reference to Al Franken.
I live in Minnesota and I’m an Al Franken fan and I agree that’s not any sort of reference to him — as others have noted, he’s still keeping a lowish profile and “hasn’t been in the news much lately.” Just a pun on “Frankenstein” and move along, nothing else to see here.
he’s still keeping a lowish profile and “hasn’t been in the news much lately.”His email newsletters are addressed to “Dear Person who Still Opens My Emails”
Shrug – Actually I have seen Al Franken TV lately – talking about a senator currently from Minnesota.
My (further) objection: nothing whatsoever related to frankincense. Makes it a “you can’t tuna fish” grade of pun at best.