“The Standard Comic Sign …”

Every Friday, the British newspaper The Independent runs a full page article about some work of art. This week, it’s the painting “The Big Night Down The Drain” by Georg Baselitz (pictured in a scan from the paper). Not coincidentally, the Indy is currently sponsoring a Baselitz exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

Tom Lubbock writes, “… the cartoony elements of the picture – the wanker’s big head, his tight little spot of a mouth, his tiny, upturned eyeballs (the standard comic sign of a masturbator in ecstasy) – all contribute to the feeling of low farce.”

Hold, on, there’s a standard comic sign of a masturbator in ecstasy?

You know, I really don’t want to check up on that proposition.