Mitch4 notes: “Or is it actually 4th-wall? I thought so because the art seems to show him looking out at us, but both parents are grimacing as though they heard this and are considering their responses.”
“Looks can be deceiving” seems like a phrase too old for Dennis’s purported age, so I’m going with 4th-wall.
Similarly, hearing one side of a juicy conversation while on public transportation. If you are going to be talking loudly on your phone in public, please put the other person on speaker so we can get some closure. What did Betty say to Barbara?
This Gordo is from 1974. I had to memorize this in Catholic school, possibly less because it’s a great poem to introduce grade school students to poetry than because Kilmer was Catholic, something that was always emphasized by the good nuns. Original poem here. Ogden Nash wrote this parody:
I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I’ll never see a tree at all.
billr sends this in: “Mike does puns ad infinitum. This is a recurring motif. What I don’t get is the text thread in the newspaper being held by the counterman. I know who Tom Waits is, but don’t know his music well enough to know if this is a reference to one of his songs. Jesus is a common name in some Hispanic-speaking countries, but “Walking Spanish down the hall” is beyond me.”
The basic joke is clear: he wants to pretend to be a better person than he is. And if those are clouds they seem to be in line at the Pearly Gates — but, if so, how can he use his phone? And what’s the significance of the way the others are portrayed: golfing, eating a piece of cake, etc.
That’s the top award. The NCS is 80 years old: not quite as old as Walt Wallet.
Here’s some classic Lio comics:
From Marrose:
who notes:
I get the maniacal laughter (it is a Mad Scientist convention) but what does it have to do with a stroke?
Mitch4 sends this in, along with today’s important medical information: “I noted this because it was a misunderstanding I used to have. The point of the “turn your head” part of the hernia check is really just “so that you don’t cough on me!”. But I long thought it had something to do with some connection between the muscles and tendons in the neck and upper torso with the scrotum and waistline (potential hernia areas), so that the cough-test would work.
“And the cartoonist is here relying on that misunderstanding, or even worse, not only thinking that the turned head is an inherent part of the test, but here seeming to rely on the turned head *alone*, without the visceral grip.”
guero sends this in:
Comics I Don't Understand 