Daddee Yah!

Being the youngest I grew up with books and some comics already in the house (as well as contemporary music like The Carpenters, some Beatles, Glen Campbell, John Denver… Oh my I’m scaring myself while I list this)

One of the comics that sticks in my head is Peanuts: Charlie Brown & Snoopy, Linus & his security blanket, characters whose heads are way too big for their bodies.

I guess it’s not just the Peanuts specifically- I think in all comics & cartoons that, whenever a character is concentrating on a task, be it while writing, drawing, cutting, etc, that the character is drawn with his/her tongue out, as if in the midst of licking the upper lip. It seems like a universally accepted comic-body-language.

I have always wondered about this, even consciously stuck my tongue out hoping that my homework, drawing, whatever, would turn out nicer or better than usual. It didn’t work.

Then, I saw this only last night.

If you stick your tongue out, your work isn’t necessarily going to be good. But if you concentrate on the task at hand, the tongue comes out.

Try it.

Sorry for the quality of these photos. They are actually still frames from a video that I took of Caitlin’s tongue action with my iPhone- I freeze-framed these shots and screen captured them.

No I haven’t played them back to her yet. Hot Mummee just suggested that I do, and highlight this to her before she gets older and where kids are mean!