Brick vs. Pipe

After reading the Krazy Kat comics, one I found particularly interesting was the strip from July 31, 1942. While not completely similar, Ignatz's drawing of the brick can be compared Magritte's depiction of the pipe. The pictorial symbolism of what the brick meant to the storyline was enough to land Ignatz in trouble with the law yet again, despite the fact that it was clearly not the physical manifestation of the brick, which was what normally got him into trouble. Conversely, Magritte's drawing was not to be thought of as the actual object, or hold an substantial value as being the exact object itself. It was solely a depiction of a pipe. In terms of the Krazy Kat storyline, if a pipe had been the offending object instead of a brick, then if it was a pipe that Ignatz had drawn, he would still have been in trouble. In Krazy Kat, the officer makes no real distinction between the drawing of a brick and the actual brick itself, however this is exactly the argument Magritte produced in his drawing. A visual depiction of something should not be taken as the real thing, which it seems is exactly what the officer did.