Okay, so this one’s a CIDU:
while this one’s either a CIDU or an “I see what’s literally happening here, but what’s the actual joke supposed to be?”
And Andréa sent me this as synchronicity with the Argyle Sweater strip.
- Comment
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Comics I Don't Understand 
That second one makes him very angry.
Well, I was going to say people expect great and mystical truths and advancements from aliens and these aliens are slumming it and reporting that it’s all cool as people have lowered their expectations. But then I realized that didn’t make sense as it’s the aliens that lowered their standards first.
I assume the first is a direct riff on the final bits of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, where the landing of the spaceship, the appearance of the aliens, etc. was treated as a massively intense moment. These days, meh; our authorities are willing to show up, since it’s their job, but they can’t be expected to work up any enthusiasm. (But I still don’t know why. Maybe it would have worked better if all of the earth authorities were staring at their phones and taking selfies and such?)
And in the second one, as bobpeters61 noted, the crashed spaceman is Marvin the Martian. (Something I failed to get when I saw this in smaller scale and in black and white in my deadtree paper this morning.) Maybe we can’t believe it because he didn’t start appearing in Warner Brothers cartoons until well after 1947, so apparently he’s not only a space traveller but a time traveller as well? (Perhaps he came to New Mexico to hunt a certain rabbit, who outsmarted him by taking a ‘wrong’ turn at Albuquerque.)
The perspective on that space ship in Strange Brew is so poor that it makes me wonder whether Deering thinks that “comically bad” is the same thing as “funny”. And no, it’s not.
P.S. @ Shrug – 1947 isn’t that far off. His first WB cartoon was “Haredevil Hare“, released in 1948. He was also seen (briefly) in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, but I’m not sure whether that counts.
I think the first one refers to a previous demand by the aliens to “Take me to your leader.” But now they’ve learned a little bit more, and don’t really think that is a good idea.
I didn’t want to inject politics into this, but I think the ‘lowered expectations’ DO give it away.
Oh. Mike D’s explanation makes perfect sense. It would have never occurred to me.
But it’s not clear what “the pressure” would have been in the first place.
I do not think that it is, but even if the top one were supposed to be “political”, it is so poorly executed that the joke just doesn’t work (which fits in with the spacecraft’s door).
ANOTHER UFO comic –
https://www.gocomics.com/redandrover/2018/09/18
Certain cartoonists need to just stop assuming readers can decipher their drawings and just telegraph everything in dialogue or narration.
@ Powers – Just looking at the URL in the browser’s address bar shows how popular that furry rodent is around here.
There was an entire TV show that followed the premise of the Brew strip: “ALF.” And it lasted for 4 years.
early black and white melodramas on alien encounters had everyone in a panic and pandemonium was everywhere, people were evacuating to the hills, the air raid sirens were blaring, and the military was setting up the howitzers anticipating the invasion. Lot more response in those old movies.