Stupid questions from an American

[Judge Brian]

Why is Sinister made up like a clown and why doesn't anyone think it's strange?

[Jim_Campbell]

Why is Sinister made up like a clown and why doesn't anyone think it's strange?

He's from Northampton.

Cheers

Jim

[radiator]

As far as I know, there is no reason, other than it was an artistic quirk by series artist Simon Davis that was later copied by other artists. It's one of those things that you don't even notice after a while.

[JOE SOAP]

It's the phuture and why are you Robert Smith?

[TordelBack]

Why is Sinister made up like a clown and why doesn't anyone think it's strange?

Stranger than his partner who has no pupils and is shacked up with a cop despite being an amoral killer-for-hire? Stranger than an entire industry of killers-for-hire that while employed largely by gang-bosses are somehow viewed as essential to peace and justice in Downlode, which BTW has giant weaponised 'gators in its docklands and anime school-girl robot bodyguards wandering around its casinos?  Stranger than an interstellar culture that builds exact replicas of 1970's downtown and suburban America on alien worlds?   Finny's about the most normal thing in the whole strip, so he is!

[Wake]

Why is Sinister made up like a clown and why doesn't anyone think it's strange?

I think of it as a goth-like style choice

[Judge Brian]

It's the phuture and why are you Robert Smith?

Why shouldn't I be Robert Smith?

[Judge Brian]

Why is Sinister made up like a clown and why doesn't anyone think it's strange?

Stranger than his partner who has no pupils and is shacked up with a cop despite being an amoral killer-for-hire? Stranger than an entire industry of killers-for-hire that while employed largely by gang-bosses are somehow viewed as essential to peace and justice in Downlode, which BTW has giant weaponised 'gators in its docklands and anime school-girl robot bodyguards wandering around its casinos?  Stranger than an interstellar culture that builds exact replicas of 1970's downtown and suburban America on alien worlds?   Finny's about the most normal thing in the whole strip, so he is!

I've just started reading the strip. I haven't seen Dexter yet.

[Judge Brian]

I ask because the traditional pasty clown face with red hair & a red nose is based on anti-Irish stereotypes. Finn is irish, isn't he?

[TordelBack]

I ask because the traditional pasty clown face with red hair & a red nose is based on anti-Irish stereotypes. Finn is irish, isn't he?

To be sure, to be sure.

Although I didn't know that about clowns, and given the Italian origins of the traditional make-up I do have trouble believing it...

[JOE SOAP]

Why shouldn't I be Robert Smith?

I ask because the traditional pasty clown face with red hair & a red nose is based on anti-Irish stereotypes.

The whiteface clown is of French origin and while there are plenty who act like 'clowns' in Ireland there are few who make a living out of it (politicians excepted).

The Irish connection is more an asscoiation with a particular Irish-American actor, Emmet Kelly, who protrayed a Depression Era clown-like hobo or tramp rather than a national stereotype .

[TordelBack]

The whiteface clown is of French origin...

Begob!  I thought it was from the Venetian Comedie/Masquerade* or has Michael Moorcock misled me (again)?  I can't be arsed with t'Google, so I'll take Joe's word (it's for the best - Joe knows).

*Although as I type those words, they do look awfully French...

[JOE SOAP]

Begob!  I thought it was from the Venetian Comedie/Masquerade* or has Michael Moorcock misled me (again)?  I can't be arsed with t'Google, so I'll take Joe's word (it's for the best - Joe knows).

*Although as I type those words, they do look awfully French...

I'm sure at one stage a French and Italian clown made whoppee in a tiny car and gave birth to what we know now as the modern child-scarer.

[Frank]

Begob!  I thought it was from the Venetian Comedie/Masquerade* or has Michael Moorcock misled me (again)?  I can't be arsed with t'Google, so I'll take Joe's word (it's for the best - Joe knows).

*Although as I type those words, they do look awfully French...

I'm sure at one stage a French and Italian clown made whoppee in a tiny car and gave birth to what we know now as the modern child-scarer.

Arf! I think that's exactly what the familiar circus clown is - a hybrid of the colourful and idiotic Harlequin and the sad whiteface Pierrot from Italian Commedia del Arte. I'll take Brian's word that the US hobo clown is used as a stick with which to beat the Irish, but clowns were white of face, red of nose and stupid for at least three centuries before anyone rode a rail or took a seltzer to the kisser.

[TordelBack]

...clowns were white of face, red of nose and stupid...

See that's my problem: surely this is a more accurate caricature of the Scots Scottish Scotch?