"Walk Like an Egyptian"
A spoof especially for Egyptophiles or wannabees, these drawings twist ancient iconography into today's and back again. Some of the visual puns, indeed, rely on some familiarity with the writing conventions of ancient Egyptian language: writing from right to left or top to bottom, or reducing everyday messages to simple symbols. The endleaves alone contain a sight gag per square inch.
But the author's taste for absurdity generates as many laughs by exploiting popular culture's misrepresentation of the ancient culture and juxtaposing ancient people into modern situations and vice versa. Nowhere in ancient art do people contort their arms the way Steve Martin did in his famous spoof, yet the mysterious figures throughout this little book gesture hilariously with bent arms and hands pointing in opposite directions. Or, how about embalmers wrapping a mummy with linen strips off a colossal tape dispenser? Elan Fleisher's facile humor defies description. You have to see it.
A spoof especially for Egyptophiles or wannabees, these drawings twist ancient iconography into today's and back again. Some of the visual puns, indeed, rely on some familiarity with the writing conventions of ancient Egyptian language: writing from right to left or top to bottom, or reducing everyday messages to simple symbols. The endleaves alone contain a sight gag per square inch.
But the author's taste for absurdity generates as many laughs by exploiting popular culture's misrepresentation of the ancient culture and juxtaposing ancient people into modern situations and vice versa. Nowhere in ancient art do people contort their arms the way Steve Martin did in his famous spoof, yet the mysterious figures throughout this little book gesture hilariously with bent arms and hands pointing in opposite directions. Or, how about embalmers wrapping a mummy with linen strips off a colossal tape dispenser? Elan Fleisher's facile humor defies description. You have to see it.
