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Questions
1. Editorial cartoonists often use humor to to point out something that people find annoying. How does the cartoonist take a lighthearted approach to the increasing trend on news websites of blending tabloid news in with straight news stories?
2. Which comic device does Bill Watterson use in his Calvin and Hobbes strip?
a) pun
b) personification
c) oxymoron
d) onomatopoeia
Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the answers.
Cartoon by Bill Watterson
Answers
1. Calvin misunderstands the point of the assignment: to choose an actual news story; he instead chooses the tabloid story, the headline of which is typical of the fake or sensationalized types of “news” stories that many people will read as opposed to actual news.
2. b) personification
Personification is a figure of speech in which human characteristics are attributed to an abstract quality, animal, or inanimate object. Calvin’s friend Hobbs is a talking stuffed animal.
The cartoonist did not use:
a) pun, which is a “play on words” – a type of humor using a word or phrase that has two meanings
c) oxymoron, which is a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (such as the phrase “jumbo shrimp” or “virtual reality”)
d) onomatopoeia, which is the creation of words that imitate natural sounds (buzz and hiss are examples of onomatopoeia)
NOTE: Regular posting for the school year resumes Wednesday, September 4. This cartoon is from our Cartoon Archives. First posted at StudentNewsDaily on March 18,2016.
