Carnivalesque

In a sense, all of the cartoons on this site participate in the carnivalesque, invoking epidemic themes to destabilize received views, most often in Terry Eagleton’s notion of licensed transgression, more rarely as utopian antidotes. This section will only single out images that more explicitly dance in the face of disease.

Carnival’s entry
Carnival
Sarrasqueta and the flu
Beneficial souls
Manners and modes
Matched pairs
Dangers of the Comedy Theater
Hop to it!
Paris carnival
Gil Blas getting drunk with cholera
From “Sun and Moon”
Danse macabre
The death of theater
On the street
Voila, cholera
Behold, cholera
Feasting as the plague approaches
Danse macabre
The “Spanish”
The whole world has the flu
Irony of scarcity
Preventive carnival 1919
Carnival and Lent
Parting with cholera