“Close-up magic” is done right in front of you (as opposed to “stage magic”). This is the opposite.
To add to what Arthur said (although this is perhaps pretty obvious): Close-up magic can be very impressive because you have a close, unfettered view of what the magician is doing, and it’s still mysterious what’s happening. The opposite, where you can barely see the magician at all, and he makes something “disappear” that you could barely see anyway, would be (comically) unimpressive.
BTW, I had recently seen some good Andertoons. I considered putting them into my daily routine. But first I took a deep dive into his archive. I decided to just look at ones that other people liked (or, as in this case, were confused about).
I absolutely did not get the connection to close-up magic. “Far-away magic” felt like some phrase from advertising or some song I’d never heard that was used in a different context. Arthur moved this one from CIDU to meh for me.
@ DemetriosX – I think Arthur’s second comment shows that he thinks a lot of Andertoons comics belong in the “meh” category. I’ve traversed a bit of the archive myself, and while there were a few gems, they were far to sparsely distributed to justify adding the address to my daily list.
An oddity I noticed in Andertoons a while ago (like June?) was that a few times when a character was given a name, the surname was “Anderson”.
@ Mitch4 – The author’s name is Mark Anderson. He’s not the only cartoonist who has put himself (or his family) into his artwork: Jim Davis’s primary (human) character is also a cartoonist (Jon, owner of Garfield). Calvin dad is a patent attorney, just like Bill Watterson’s father, and both “The Family Circus” and “For Better or for Worse” are largely autobiographical. On a darker note, Hank Ketcham borrowed his own son’s name for his diabolical creation (an act that I personally consider abusive).
UmmHmm. Dennis and his parents have a surname, which is Mitchell. Since my first and middle name are Mitchell Dennis, I always used to think I had some special relationship to Dennis Mitchell, that my parents were signalling by those names.
It was quite a bit later that I found out the strip debuted about a year AFTER I was born, and I finally could shake it off!
Dennis Ketcham’s parents were named Henry and Alice, just like Dennis Mitchell’s.
In one of the comic books Dennis noted that George and Martha Wilson next door had the same first names as George and Martha Washington.
George and Martha also star in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” .
Comics I Don't Understand 
“Close-up magic” is done right in front of you (as opposed to “stage magic”). This is the opposite.
To add to what Arthur said (although this is perhaps pretty obvious): Close-up magic can be very impressive because you have a close, unfettered view of what the magician is doing, and it’s still mysterious what’s happening. The opposite, where you can barely see the magician at all, and he makes something “disappear” that you could barely see anyway, would be (comically) unimpressive.
BTW, I had recently seen some good Andertoons. I considered putting them into my daily routine. But first I took a deep dive into his archive. I decided to just look at ones that other people liked (or, as in this case, were confused about).
I absolutely did not get the connection to close-up magic. “Far-away magic” felt like some phrase from advertising or some song I’d never heard that was used in a different context. Arthur moved this one from CIDU to meh for me.
@ DemetriosX – I think Arthur’s second comment shows that he thinks a lot of Andertoons comics belong in the “meh” category. I’ve traversed a bit of the archive myself, and while there were a few gems, they were far to sparsely distributed to justify adding the address to my daily list.
An oddity I noticed in Andertoons a while ago (like June?) was that a few times when a character was given a name, the surname was “Anderson”.
@ Mitch4 – The author’s name is Mark Anderson. He’s not the only cartoonist who has put himself (or his family) into his artwork: Jim Davis’s primary (human) character is also a cartoonist (Jon, owner of Garfield). Calvin dad is a patent attorney, just like Bill Watterson’s father, and both “The Family Circus” and “For Better or for Worse” are largely autobiographical. On a darker note, Hank Ketcham borrowed his own son’s name for his diabolical creation (an act that I personally consider abusive).
UmmHmm. Dennis and his parents have a surname, which is Mitchell. Since my first and middle name are Mitchell Dennis, I always used to think I had some special relationship to Dennis Mitchell, that my parents were signalling by those names.
It was quite a bit later that I found out the strip debuted about a year AFTER I was born, and I finally could shake it off!
Dennis Ketcham’s parents were named Henry and Alice, just like Dennis Mitchell’s.
In one of the comic books Dennis noted that George and Martha Wilson next door had the same first names as George and Martha Washington.
George and Martha also star in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” .