RUSSIAN COMIC PAPERS.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 10645, 26 June 1897, Page 6

RUSSIAN COMIC PAPERS.

We oan hardly hope to rise to an ap J precision of finer shades of foreign humour ; but there still remains, (says a writer in the Pall Mall Gazette) a largo range of jokes in which the point of view is merely human, Bnd hore we stand on an equal footing with tho native. To this international cntegory I should ascribo those jokes which deal with drink, mothera-in Jaw, borrowing money without the intention of repaying it, and tho like, things over which we v all of us love to laugh. Fortunately for us foroistners, the Russian comics confine themselves for the moot part to tbi« class of joke. It is a great thing for r paper to be witty as well aa funny. Tho Eußsian humoroua paper, therefore, begins aa a rule with. a large coloured drawing, lightly satirieing tho foibles ' boauty. Beauty is represented at tho toilette or in evoning dress, with languid eyes and 2in. lashes; tho subject of ti»o subscribed dialogue, if only ladieo aro depioted, is generally tho difficulty of securing husband^ or if there be a man in the picture thoi-o is a subtle contrast of his passion and her eye for the main chance. For instsneo, ' I lovo you so, Pash» onku,' Bays ho, 'that I should liko to give you a thousand kisscD.' 'I would rather, she roplies, 'that you would give mis a thousand roubles.' Or again, at a masquerade: 'How enn I prove my Jevotion, fair mask P' saya be. ' Stand me a supper, 1 is the rpjoinder. The jiiko ends hero. Another pngf is devoted to pictorial entire of the pwvu.cvs, allegorical joice^ about town concoils, waturwork compuoiug, and otiioi: enterUlning things. Yet another i.s avowedly devoted to compilation from, foreign sources, pictures «ad text being rudely imitated from tho French and German comic presa. Ttie intervening space is covered for tho most part, with flhort dialogues or solitary jjkas, displayed with a system B'ui regi'ilurity whioh puts the haphazard oilitirig of our English papers to shame. The |okes arc arranged by groups according to subject and duly sljjned by the porpe'rators with their noms da plume. So if you do not foul inclined for ' Ppioakes ' by Butterfly or 'Vodka Dialogues ' by Little Wideawake, you oan turn over to the series of good things! labelled ' Mothers-in-Law,' by D. T.\ 1, ' What, Yjanyousha, drunk again ? I thought you (only got drunk on the great holiday.^,' — "To«day is a great holiday; my /mother-in-law hab gone away.' . . J . (It is usual )n Russia to put a serials of full-otopa at the end of a printed jjoke to express the pause during which? in real life the company contemplate tit before deciding how load toUugh.) / 2. 'Whither away so fast, N.N.? Are you faying from the plague?'— 'Yes . J , my mother-in-law??!! &c,« 60. ' Very convenient, you see, and It Bftvee a gjreat deal of mental activity to have only' one subjeot to attend to at a time. TAe natives sit and squeal with laughter' over these sallies. Political satire sopH beyond the Bphere of mere humour,! It is, of courße, levelled at the polar foreigners; home allusions would ilead direotly to the censorial kiboak,^ John Bull may be seen depicted/ as a lautern-jawed, red-nosed ruffian} with long whiskers, tucking In at series .of bifshteks while hie good dog 1 Civi| Service ' chases away a crowd of famißJned Indiana who aro begging for a mouthful. Or he is stirring a pot labelled ' Kettlo of Pish for Turkey, and /filling it with small figures representing Greece, Armenia, &o. His nose is Kenerally painted red, not with unKeiAerous innuendo, but merely because a noise is funnier if red. -The Russian paperß have one real ii(flvantage over Punch, they have no jokes about horses, except tramhorsea. Tho horse ia not a national animal out by&re, except as an article of diet among tis'he Tartars. j Tho most comical thing about the fpomic pupora is their price, which is Always 4d or 53. You might make 20 i numbers of a Russian comic paper out / of n copy of Sniggery Bits, Coughdrops, or any other half-penny English paper.