« Before the incalculable capacity of the Internet to answer nearly any question put to it while allowing a legion of pedants to hold forth without constraint, getting the facts of the matter took some effort. »
Weekly column ‘Why Things Are‘ ran in The Washington Post from 1990 to 1996. During these diverting (at least as far as the common topic is concerned) years, WOT favourite cartoonist Richard Thompson tackled such various brain bafflers as ‘what does the inside of your nose smell like?’ or ‘why does overdrinking cause a hangover?’ These, at any rate, were the questions posed by Joel Achenbach, staff writer for TWP, questions from which Thompson bounced into sometimes altogether unexpected directions. « The column was fundamentally zany », explains Achenbach in the introduction to the collection of Why Things Are, « though larded with real information and interviews. Richard, it turns out, had crammed his brain over the decades with all manner of esoteric information. The cartoons sang – and sing to this day – with the perfect pitch if the slightly demented intellectual. » There are few things closer to my heart than a non-sequitur with a pedantic bent!
Here is a selection of cartoons from the aforementioned collection, published in 2017 by Picture This Press. While these illustrations need no further accompaniment, the questions submitted to (or by) Achenbach are included under each image. Enjoy!
~ ds
Who's Out There? 