Mirthless Laughter

@mirthlesslaughter.bsky.social

1168 Followers 2217 Following

Translator. Editor. Copywriter. Occasional voiceover bloke. Planning to return to cartooning after a brief 35-year hiatus. Posts in français and svenska may occur.

Two scoops of orange ice cream in a black bowl topped by an upside-down waffle cone, why do you ask, Doctor Freud
Actor Peter Boyle dressed in a tuxedo like some kinda bigshot
A small, round pineapple reposes unsuspectingly in the palm of my hand
BBC website headline: Man who asked woman for kids sentenced in legal first
Marjane Satrapi’s Instagram page, arranged to spell out the words “For I lost the love of my life”
A young man with a Union Jack somehow hanging from his neck is sitting by a desk holding a white stuffed toy horse. Several papers, folders and books are strewn over the desk, along with a wooden Dalecarlia horse and a small globe
A tree-lined alleyway in a park in West London with a small dog sniffing around and occasionally jumping onto the lap of the person shooting the video, who is seated on a bench, while birds sing
A plinth in a park with a steel representation of a paper dart stuck in it, bearing an inscription explaining that this is where a JAS 39 Gripen plane crashed on 8 August 1993 during an aerial exhibition
The Gruffalo from the children’s book of the same name by Julia Donaldson, a jovial, hairy horned beast
A small white dog peering over a gate set in a doorframe
A text message that reads “I I My Did Do MGood My” and other similar gibberish
Tintin the Maltipoo gazes dejectedly over the gate we placed across the kitchen door
A photograph of the Five Guys burger restaurant in the Gare du Nord, Paris
A series of posts on Bluesky making derogatory comments about Greg Bovino and Joe Rogan based on their height rather than the fact that they support a fascist regime
A page from the Sainsbury’s website listing recipes for biscuits, with a notice requiring users to accept cookies
Headline from the Apple website that reads “Apple to celebrate 50 years of thinking different”
A screenshot of a bot profile named “Janeshyla”showing an avi of a young woman and a banner photograph showing the inside of a hardware store
BBC News headline that reads:“Quadruple amputee and bean-bag-toss champion accused of fatally shooting passenger while driving”
BBC News push notification that reads: “Starmer to announce help for heating oil bills as Trump calls on allies to help secure Strait of Hormuz”
Photo of my legs as I sit on a park bench, with my dog Tintin, a small white Maltipoo, watching in the background. My jeans are covered in muddy paw prints. 🐾
Photo from The Londonist showing a traditional British pillar-box confined in a small space with openings on either side with the caption “The only postbox with two, opposite openings in Britain can be found in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea. The two apertures allow both the public (outside the walls) and the pensioners (inside) to use the box when the gates are closed.”
Google suggestions to complete the words “is it possible to”: fly, read minds, be allergic to weed or have black hair
Excerpt from a vocal.media article on Donald Trump’s friendship with Liberace: “In 1985 at Trump Tower, Jackson took the second bedroom in Liberace's suite for a few weeks. The fact that Liberace and Michael Jackson were actually roommates, albeit for a short time, in Trump Tower is certainly stranger than even fiction would have it.”
Screenshot from the BBC News showing Nick Symonds MP speaking in Parliament with the caption “Fallout continues continues from release of Epstein files”
The words to “Humpty Dumpty” transposed into cod French: “Un petit d’un petit/S’étonne aux Halles…” from the collection Mots D’Heures: Gousses, Rames [Mother Goose Rhymes]
A roadside sign in Wales bearing a stylised image of a combat tank and the words “Tanks Crossing” and “Sudden Gunfire”
A cartoon by Serguei showing a giant hourglass with a spiral staircase around it. People are walking up and down the stairs carrying pots; at the bottom, they fill their pots with sand that they then empty into the hourglass at the top. Sorry, it’s a bit complicated to explain.
Classic News of the World headline that reads “Nudist welfare man’s model wife fell for the Chinese hypnotist from the Co-op bacon factory”
Daily Mirror headline reading “Tyrant Captured by Lunatic” above a photograph of Nicolas Maduro handcuffed by US forces
The poster for Woody Allen’s film Hannah and Her Sisters, with a photograph of Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey and Dianne Wiest
The Saga of the Swamp Thing box set by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, John Totleben, Rick Veitch and Alfredo Alcala
AI caption: “Ryan, Ryan, Ryan.”
Advertisement for a graphene pencil, with the words “No waste. The pencil that stays sharp forever - yes, the tip never wears down.” above a photograph of the pencil. Below, a caption reads “Buy 3, get 2 FREE!”
Le Capitaine Haddock en lunettes noires, dans une case tirée de l’album Tintin au Tibet, disant : “Je m’en bats les couilles frère.”
A milk chocolate Father Christmas (sorry, can’t bring myself to call him Santa Claus, it’s how I was brought up) figure wrapped in ornate tinfoil
The cover of The Books of Magic, a painting by John Bolton, depicting Timothy Hunter, a bespectacled boy dressed in jeans, T-shirt and trainers, riding a flying skateboard and accompanied by his owl Yo-Yo
The Marvel Comics character Ghost Rider, a flaming skeleton in leathers brandishing a chain, standing on top of a motorcycle engulfed in fire
Comic book panel depicting a man wearing a helmet with electrodes sticking out of it, captioned: “By 2016, Man’s intelligence will be able to be increased by drugs and by linking human brains directly to computers!”
French actor of Turkish origin Tchéky Karyo looking grizzled and wearing a flat cap
BBC website headline that reads “Manhunt after jailed Epping hotel asylum seeker mistakenly released”
In a detail from a panel in the comic book Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, the character Adrian Veidt sits in a chair gazing at a wall of television screens set to different channels while petting his mutant cat Bubastis and recording his thoughts on a tape recorder. “Just me and the world,” he observes.
Sign on a bridge in Dorset bearing the words: “NOTICE/DORSET/Any person wilfully injuring any part of this county bridge will be guilty of felony and upon conviction liable to be transported for life/By the court/T Fooks”
A panel from the comic book Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, depicting a Smile badge in a gutter in a pool of blood, accompanied by the caption “Rorschach’s journal. October 12, 1985: Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face.”
A passage from Don Marquis’ poem Archy interviews a pharaoh that reads: and with these hopeless words the unfortunate residuum gave a great cough of despair and turned to dust and debris right in my face it being the only time i ever actually saw anybody put the cough into sarcophagus
Detail from the cover of Action Comics #481, showing Superman piloting the Supermobile, a sort of cross between a plane and an Iron Man suit, using a telescopic fist to punch the android Amazo in the gob
Tintin the Maltipoo, a small dog with curly white fur, reclines on a blue sofa, using a green cushion as a pillow
A screenshot from a Facebook group in which members post out-of-context panels from comic books. In this case, a member has posted a sequence from Amazing Spider-Man #658 in which The Invisible Woman catches a mime by enclosing him in a force field. Underneath the image, a member (me) has commented: “He’s a Marcel Comics character”
A portrait photograph of Tintin the Maltipoo, a small dog with white curly fur, gazing at the camera with large brown eyes, tongue protruding slightly, wearing a string of pearls
A segment of machine translated text including the words “Infect Dis Now” [an abbreviation of Infectious Diseases Now]
A screenshot from the BBC News programme The Context, showing Republican Strategist Ashley Davis talking in front of a tapestry with a motif of flowers and what appear to be swastikas
From a nightmare sequence in Hergé’s Les Sept Boules de Cristal, the mummified figure of Rascar Capac enters Tintin’s bedroom brandishing a crystal ball before shattering it on the floor. I am probably not the only person to have been terrified by this sequence in their childhood
A CNC-milled brass hood ornament shaped like the helmet of The Rocketeer from the comics by Dave Stevens
Photograph of a sculpture representing a giant corkscrew with outstretched “arms” at the Cité du Vin in Bordeaux
Tintin the Maltipoo, a small dog with curly white fur, photographed in mid-leap so he appears to be hovering above the ground, his shadow cast below him untethered, his expression rapt, his tail proud and bristling; in short, a happy dog
Photo of JK Simmonds as J Jonah Jameson in the 2002 Spider-Man film, holding a cigar. The photo is captioned: “Slander is spoken. In print it’s libel.”
The cover to the Lev Gleason-published Daredevil comic #18, showing the titular character at a carnival hitting a high striker with a mallet
An Amazon customer review for a coffee grinder that gives the product 5 stars. The headline reads “it works” and the body of text “dont want to write a review”. An automated comment below mentions that “One person found this helpful”