ABSTRACT
The hyperbole of caricature and satire in Larson, which is apt to provoke a loud guffaw, is much more concentrated, focused, and direct than the subtle and complex irony and playful humor of a Pongian poem, which may inspire only a silent, internalized-if nonetheless intensely enjoyed-chuckle. The artist has already transferred his and our subjectivity to the other side, effectively inviting us to take that side along with him as advocates for it. But in order to manifest the side taken of the chicken, the bird must reciprocate by crossing over into humanity and break through into the zone of subjective self-consciousness. Although this chicken has not yet crossed the road and metamorphosed into a humanimal, another one clearly has in a cartoon that illustrates what humanimality is all about, namely, the reenacting of human situations by animals to set those situations in relief and, by recontextualizing them, expose their essential absurdity.
