Marrose sends:
She asks:
Why are there medieval peasants (circa 1300) talking about the French Revolution ( 1789-1802)? I get the comment was supposed to be wryly funny, but I can’t get past the characters.
I guess the cartoonist is fuzzy about how revolting French people would have dressed? Maybe AI involved, “Draw me some people from long ago”. Srsly, it’s an excellent question, and an unnecessary distraction from the point of the cartoon!
Tomlinson is from South Africa, but I don’t think that gets him a bye on this detail.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Also: treatment for what?
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Powers – Dandruff? Head lice? Actually that treatment will put an end to most any medical problem.
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As a person with extremely low knowledge of history and different ways of dress, the joke is fine for me. However, if someone is going to nitpick the different styles, why not complain about the hoods? Apparently those were rare.
Philip – This treatment will certainly make the executee not care about any medical problem, but it won’t end many of them. Even worse, it could cause the spread of their medical problem to others, exacerbating it, not ending it.
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I don’t see anything in the cartoon to indicate that it is supposed to be c. 1300.
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The peasants feel like they were cribbed from a painting.
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Usual John, they’re right. I’m no expert but there’s a lot online about historical clothing. These guys are wearing gowns, hose, and curly shoes, which would have been perfect for the 14th-century French peasant going to town. By the early 18th century, they’d have breeches, chemise-style shirts, and shoes with square toes.
Anyway, googling “3 peasants talking” gives me the image that was clearly used for reference so that’s the why of it.
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I didn’t think to look for the source painting. It’s Three Peasants in Conversation, by Albrecht Dürer, c. 1497. But the architecture seems characteristic of the 18th and 19th centuries, and the equestrian is wearing a bicorne, which is associated with the Napoleonic period. And of course that is a guillotine, which was not put in use until 1792.
I don’t think we have a well-researched historical setting here. I would have thought that the French Revolution was intended, but the guillotine is so associated with the Reign of Terror that it’s hard to see humor in the punchline.
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