Some elements of this sign show impressive attention to detail. Note for example the sharp heel, the deft facial profile, and the dynamic leading leg that evokes a pleasant but purposeful stroll by this pictogram-about-town. These careful features lead me to puzzle all the more about his crude claws and anatomically improbable following leg.
Best of all, though, is the incongruence of his choice of direction with respect to the giant authoritative arrow. Is he heedless or contrary, or is he some kind of subversive entity? Or do my eyes deceive me, and is he in fact breezily moonwalking his way away from the danger zone?
There are mysteries everywhere.
July 6, 2009 at 10:42 pm
I wouldn’t be surprised if all he can do is walk backwards with legs shaped like that. So maybe he is following the arrow after all.
July 7, 2009 at 12:28 am
Dude, he’s dancing like he’s in Scooby Doo. Now, go back and look.
July 7, 2009 at 10:49 am
Fran: That is what’s so curious: one leg is rendered so well, yet the other is, well, a plank with a shoe. It’s as if whoever designed the pictogram lost the ability to depict legs sometime between designing the first and the second.
Lucy: Goodness, you could be right. That explains a lot, though it also makes me more anxious about the mysterious sack underneath the sign.
July 7, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Hm … before reading my first thought was: Am I thought to think there is a female corpse in the sack?
As for the sign: It’s certainly a designed catachresis of human anatomy.
July 7, 2009 at 11:30 pm
And he would have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for you pesky kids.
July 8, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Sean’s apprehension has made me look at the pictogram man in a disturbing new light. At least his (PM’s) silhouette would be conspicuous in a police line-up.
And Lucy, who should be a gag writer, delivers the perfect punchline!