“That’s the man! I’d know him anywhere.”
If she’s pointing to the guy in the sport jacket, what’s the joke?
If she’s not pointing to the man in the sport jacket, what’s the joke?
Actually, it looks like she’s trying to stick her finger up the police detective’s nose, in which case I might not want to know what the joke is.
Comics I Don't Understand 
I expect it’s probably a reference to an advertisement that was current then. If so, it might be difficult to prove.
The joke is that it’s ‘the’ guy in the sport jacket, who also happens to be the only one smoking, the shortest by a full half a head and the broadest by a pretty good amount. The only way the others look at all like him is one is bald and the other two (might be) balding. (And possibly they might all have moustaches, or all be clean shaven – it’s hard to tell whether they’re supposed to have lip fur, or if those are the shadows of their noses.) The cops did a spectacularly bad job in choosing and dressing the foils, so there’s no real chance that she could have chosen wrongly. (If this was a full story, rather than a single panel, he’d probably be innocent, and being railroaded, either through malice or incompetence.)
KM’s comment about shortness led me to look at the height markings. They show that their heads are between 1 and 1.5 feet tall. If you extrapolate downward, zero is waist- or crotch-high.
Could it be that the other fellows are what would have been known as “bums” back then (based on how they are dressed), while the fellow she is indicating is well dressed and successful looking?
@Arthur: I think you need new glasses. The height markings show they’re all between 5 and just over 6 feet.
This is another one where without the signature, I’d have said it was by Addams. Their styles are remarkably similar.
If it were Addams, though, it’d be easier, because the dude would be way weirder. (Actually, I think I might have seen this gag done with one of the Family.)
Definitely the guy in the jacket. Notice how he’s highlighted by the artist. As for the joke, it probably has something to do with an advertisement. He’s confident and sure of himself, the others are all sad sacks. But I don’t know the actual joke.
Given how similar they all look (including the officer she is pointing at), I assumed instead of any of the people in the lineup, she is actually pointing at the officer saying “it’s him!”
That at least would be a little funny.
It’s signed — Peter Arno.
I join in the suspicion that it uses an advertisement. My guess is “Man of Distinction”.
Oh I see — “… as of course you all knew already”.
I agree with Kamino Neko’s analysis @2: the pipe smoker is the intended target. However, if Arno actually had drawn the hand to point at the officer sitting right next to the woman, then Karl makes a good point: that would have been pretty funny.
@DemetriosX – Arthur’s point was the small gaps between the 7, 6, 5 and 4 foot markings. Carry on down with 3, 2 and 1 at the same spacing, you find zero is actually at crotch level. Their feet are at the level of -5 or -6.
@narmitaj: Ah, I see. I hadn’t noticed that. I’d put zero closer to their knees, but the point stands. Sorry, Arthur!
Karl has it. Looking at the art anew, the woman is both looking and pointing at the man beside her, not at the lineup. The angle of her hand is a bit odd, granted, but, as usual in this type of thing, she’s pointing *and* looking at the person she’s, um, fingering.
It’s he!
Addams did do a police lineup joke. He had a row of little blonde girls. Trying to identify the suspect were three bears.
Mr. Boffo had one titled “Unclear on the Concept”. A man in a lineup points at the witness and shouts “That’s the one, officer! I’d recognize that purse anywhere!”
Gahan Wilson showed a lineup with a Peter Lorre-ish ghoul standing alone, picking his teeth. Out front a cop is saying, “Wait a minute — Where are the others?”
Got to be the man in the sports jacket; otherwise there’s no reason for the panel to contrast the man in the sports jacket with three slovenly layabouts. And, yes, the man was probably supposed to be recognizable at the time from some ad campaign or the like.
But, while I think that *was* the intended joke, I agree that having had the witness point at the guy sitting next to her and accusing him out of nowhere would have been funnier.
Minor Annoyance, I think all three of those have shown up here as retro LOLs.
(Of course thanks to GoDaddy, we can never be sure)
I’m trying to figure out why people think she’s pointing at the guy next to her. Is it because his nose is hanging over her hand, which is pointing at the guy in the lineup?
@ Kamino Neko – It’s simply a matter of proximity. The way the hand is drawn (with the three lines), you can tell it has to be her right hand, and must be pointing “forward” (toward the lineup), otherwise she would be dislocating a shoulder. On the other hand, if you ignore the anatomy and just consider the hand’s outline (or look at it at low, or “mobile telephone” resolution), it could seem to be pointing at the nose of the man on the right.
I think Meryl A got it. The lineup members are all “bums,” except for Mr. Hoity-Toity there.
I have to say that it doesn’t look to me like the woman is pointing to the man next to her at all. Her hand is held fairly flat and she’s on the left side of the frame and pointing towards the right-center, so you would expect her finger to be at an angle.