Well, the first 5 panels are obviously a reference to Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove.
Hence the title.
It just seems this was the artist’s only idea about how to represent an impending and devastating explosion…of attitude, in this case.
Geezer tag?
I think ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’ has entered the lexicon of ‘everyone knows it’, just like ‘Animal Farm’,’1984′ and ‘Catch 22’. In fact, I’ve seen the ‘Slim Pickens riding the bomb’ trope used in editorial comics within the past few weeks.
Yeah, I guess I’ve got to pay more attention to the titles. Sorry.
Stan has it.
But it is … a weird analogy. To my mind at least it doesn’t fit. The riding of the bomb, as opposed to the actual explosion, is isolate and without sound or effects or motions, this strip seems … silent.
I’d put the emphasis a little differently than “an explosion is coming.” The key part of the story is that curtailing a teenager’s phone use is a wildly reckless and dangerous maneuver, on par with Slim Pickens riding a nuclear bomb. This worked for me.
As with any other suicide mission, he knew the job was dangerous when he took it.
When I first looked at this, I thought the first five panels were screenshots of some phone game the kid was playing, and it really annoyed the old guy. But I think I’m wrong now.
The term “drop the bomb” means to give someone particularly bad news. To a phone addicted adolescent, being told the phone use is being curtailed would be a big bomb drop. His pondering of how this will play out, knowing he is going to drop this bomb, led to him thinking about a generational (geezer) reference to the Slim Pickins scene in Dr. Strangelove. Her pending explosion of emotion on getting the news will be secondary to the intended gag, I think.
Even if no youngster gets the precise Slim Pickens reference (and anyway in the film he was facing the camera) they would presumably pick up on the idea that riding a bomb to earth is an accelerating descent to an explosion of some sort.
I don’t quite get the middle panels either. Is he falling off the bomb? Is that significant? That certainly didn’t happen in the movie. Of course the unmistakable … um, symbolism in that scene might have made a more faithful homage harder to get past the censor.
It’s just another “The kids today and their phones!” joke.
The main thing that “doesn’t fit” is that here, Mr. Pillsbury seems terrified. When Slim Pickens was riding the bomb, it was obvious that he was thrilled, and totally enjoying the trip. On the other hand, and as strange as it may seem, the “silence” does fit. After he hotwired the controls to open the bomb bay, the noise of the rushing wind was deafening, but as soon as the bomb dropped out of the bay, the “wind” vanished, and all one hears in the movie are his excited shouts, as he waves his hat in rodeo style.
I think that the meaning of the first five panels changes a lot depending on whether or not you’re familiar with Slim Pickens riding the bomb. Not just because of the fact that it’s not obvious just from the picture that it’s the end of the world, but because the pictures alone do not convey that the person riding the bomb did so with the full conviction that the stupid thing they were doing was a good idea, and they are doing it enthusiastically.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Well, the first 5 panels are obviously a reference to Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove.
Hence the title.
It just seems this was the artist’s only idea about how to represent an impending and devastating explosion…of attitude, in this case.
Geezer tag?
I think ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’ has entered the lexicon of ‘everyone knows it’, just like ‘Animal Farm’,’1984′ and ‘Catch 22’. In fact, I’ve seen the ‘Slim Pickens riding the bomb’ trope used in editorial comics within the past few weeks.
Yeah, I guess I’ve got to pay more attention to the titles. Sorry.
Stan has it.
But it is … a weird analogy. To my mind at least it doesn’t fit. The riding of the bomb, as opposed to the actual explosion, is isolate and without sound or effects or motions, this strip seems … silent.
I’d put the emphasis a little differently than “an explosion is coming.” The key part of the story is that curtailing a teenager’s phone use is a wildly reckless and dangerous maneuver, on par with Slim Pickens riding a nuclear bomb. This worked for me.
As with any other suicide mission, he knew the job was dangerous when he took it.
When I first looked at this, I thought the first five panels were screenshots of some phone game the kid was playing, and it really annoyed the old guy. But I think I’m wrong now.
The term “drop the bomb” means to give someone particularly bad news. To a phone addicted adolescent, being told the phone use is being curtailed would be a big bomb drop. His pondering of how this will play out, knowing he is going to drop this bomb, led to him thinking about a generational (geezer) reference to the Slim Pickins scene in Dr. Strangelove. Her pending explosion of emotion on getting the news will be secondary to the intended gag, I think.
Even if no youngster gets the precise Slim Pickens reference (and anyway in the film he was facing the camera) they would presumably pick up on the idea that riding a bomb to earth is an accelerating descent to an explosion of some sort.
I don’t quite get the middle panels either. Is he falling off the bomb? Is that significant? That certainly didn’t happen in the movie. Of course the unmistakable … um, symbolism in that scene might have made a more faithful homage harder to get past the censor.
It’s just another “The kids today and their phones!” joke.
The main thing that “doesn’t fit” is that here, Mr. Pillsbury seems terrified. When Slim Pickens was riding the bomb, it was obvious that he was thrilled, and totally enjoying the trip. On the other hand, and as strange as it may seem, the “silence” does fit. After he hotwired the controls to open the bomb bay, the noise of the rushing wind was deafening, but as soon as the bomb dropped out of the bay, the “wind” vanished, and all one hears in the movie are his excited shouts, as he waves his hat in rodeo style.
I think that the meaning of the first five panels changes a lot depending on whether or not you’re familiar with Slim Pickens riding the bomb. Not just because of the fact that it’s not obvious just from the picture that it’s the end of the world, but because the pictures alone do not convey that the person riding the bomb did so with the full conviction that the stupid thing they were doing was a good idea, and they are doing it enthusiastically.