In case someone wonders why carnivorousplant’s quote doesn’t repeat my words exactly, it’s because I edited my post. Of course, carnivorousplant might edit that post, in which case this post won’t make sense. 
It wasn’t a fist pump, it was a piston motion, used to crudely denote sexual relations. In other words, carnal, not jubilant.
No, it was the popular gesture when one says, “Yes!”
Another possible reason for the disparaging comments is that the name on the tombstone is misspelled.
My take on the situation is that der Alte at the cemetery is, as others have said, the Peter Kiesl we’ve been singing along with, come to visit his son and namesake’s grave. And right now he may be thinking that the woman in front of him is a particularly attractive banshee — or German/Austrian equivalent — who has taken on the very shape and form of his beloved Edie/Eva in order to ease his passing from the world.
I like the theory - and I did notice the screwed up spelling of “Keisl.” The problem, though, is that either Edna is really losing it with age or the newspaper obit was terribly wrong as well, as surely they’d have his age listed? Perhaps she’d just glossed over that detail upon seeing “his” name?
I have to admit that I skipped a LOT of this verrrrrry long storyline, but exactly HOW did Grandma happen to see a Viennese obituary in the first place?
I disagree. By using the phrase “piston motion” or whatever she used it was about carnal, not jubilation. I agree with kunilou. If it was a fist pump, she would have said fist pump.
Speaking of gestures, is it common in Austria to grasp someone else’s chin when talking to them?
The obit was in the times.
Speculations about the age issue:[ul]
[li]Kiesl was one of a set of twins, and his parents had a strange — or prescient* — sense of humor. The one currently pushing up the daisies is the one Gran didn’t know.[/li][li]The obituary used the father’s c.v. rather than the son’s (which would add a certain rancor to his comments about simpletons).[/li][li]What Gran saw was a death notice rather than a full obit. Some papers include the deceased’s age, some don’t.[/li][/ul]As to how she saw the obit in the first place, I wouldn’t put it past the quantum anomaly in the shed.
*“Dies ist mein Bruder Peter, und dies ist mein anderer Bruder Peter.”
Or the name on the stone is correct, and the obituary was about the wrong person.
I still think it was the “Yes!” type of arm motion. I checked, it was not Juliette and Edda that did it, it was Edda and Grandma (see Grandma doing it on 5 August http://comics.com/9_chickweed_lane/2010-08-05/ ). I just don’t see the grandmother making a crude sexual gesture.
By the way, 10 August ( http://comics.com/9_chickweed_lane/2010-08-10/ ) is when Grandma says she read an obituary in the Times (presumably the New York Times), which would make sense, seeing as how Kiesl was an opera singer right after World War II, starring as Don Giovanni at the Met in New York: the kind of person whose obituary would appear in a major newspaper.
I agree it was inappropriate, but so does Juliette. In any case, it’s right there in the strip you linked.
Bend your elbow at a 90 degree angle, your forearm at hip level. Make a fist. Now, make a quick punching motion. Badda-bing.
I see the gesture in the strip, I disagree on the meaning of the gesture. Grandma is doing it to indicate “Yes! Right on!” Not intended to signify “penis moving back and forth inside the vagina - he shagged me rotten!”.
Also I see in today’s comic that the elderly gentleman in Vienna is indeed Peter Kiesl, Juliette’s father.
And as of today he acknowledged it.
The story is moving a bit quicker than I thought at this point.
In the third panel, is he looking at Juliette’s face or checking out her breasts?
It’s hard to tell with her hunched posture, but I’d do the “right on!” fist pump as a vertical motion, not horizontal. Horizontal definitely reads “bada-bing” to me.
For someone who’s just met his heretofore unknown daughter and granddaughter, he’s remarkably unimpressed about the entire event.
Aren’t we always told that Europeans are not emotionally showy people? Whereas if Juliette’s real father was a Texan, he’d be hopping around right now, yelling “yee-hah,” and firing his pistols in the air.