In at least 1 of the 18 “Dogs Playing Poker” paintings, two dogs actually are cheating. My Google search for the artist’s name always shows that painting (on my 1080 screen).
I had a real LOL from reading the restaurant one.
I liked the Understand-a-Mole one. Whac-a-Mole has recently come up in UK public discourse as our Prime Minister uses it to illustrate the city-by-city lockdown strategy to fight local Covid-19 outbreaks. But I gather that the game is essentially unwinnable, just artificially timed out – and as it progresses it seems like a poor analogy for pandemic control: starting slow, the game increases in speed “with more moles outside of their holes at the same time“.
Of course, understanding the moles is key to controlling the pandemic. Then maybe you can unscrew them at their base. (Apologies if this got marginally political!)
Yeah, I see at least two Aces of Spades, and two others that look like black Aces, can’t tell if Spades or Clubs. So somebody has been watering the wrong tree!
I haven’t been enjoying most “Priceless” comics lately, but this courtroom scene idea is a pip!
And as far as I’m concerned, the last word on Whac-a-Mole is Carmen Esposito’s standup “Guacamole”. I’ve marked this clip to start at 1:40 but that feature doesn’t always work; so if not, you might jump ahead manually, or just listen to her pleasantly political intro and know that the story will start soon.
*Cameron Esposito
“I haven’t been enjoying most “Priceless” comics lately, but this courtroom scene idea is a pip!”
Very real, too . . . that’s EXACTLY how I see the world without my glasses.
The cheating dog idea is good, but does it really need the observers and the speech bubble? Why not just draw the painting and caption it?
The last one would have been a touch more logical had the poor victim had a mallet instead of a claw hammer.
As far as the Benton painting goes, it reminded me of people who have their identities blurred. It’s a whole courtroom of those people.
@Grawlix – I think the “poor victim” was putting up the sign with the hammer, accidentally nailed himself to the sign, and had seriously insufficient training to free himself. (He could have used the claw to remove the nail, used the claw to dig up the sign, removed his jacket, … .)
>The last one would have been a touch more logical had the poor victim had a mallet instead of a claw hammer.
Naw…. the point is he has no survivalist skills at all. To not know how to use a claw hammer only *emphasizes* that.
Any logic to make the situation more difficult to solve serves to make the error and dying of it more acceptable and thus to *lessen* the humor and is thus *less* logical.
Thanks Kevin A. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on there. Good to see a fellow left-hander in the comics though, even if things didn’t work out very well for him.
Maybe if he’d had a left-handed hammer things would have gone better.
And was it a left-handed or a right-handed nail? Maybe the claw and the nail were simply incompatable, and he was doomed from the start.
The thing is that he’s a typical survivalist. Put all his skill points into weapons skills. He should have taken a point of carpentry (pulling out the nail). Or textile manufacture (taking off the coat). Or Logic (digging up the sign).
Brian’s & Shrug’s comments reminded me of the junior carpenter who was tossing away half of the nails that he was supposed to be using to install panelling onto a wall. When the foreman asked why in the world he was throwing away 50% of the nails, he answered, “Oh, those have the head on the wrong end of the nail“, to which the foreman replied, “You idiot, those nails are for the other side of the room!”
Thanks for the Dogs Playing Poker information; I put the book mentioned in the article – Poplorica: A Popular History of the Fads, Mavericks, Inventions, and Lore that Shaped Modern America – on hold at my library. Always looking for new/unusual books to read.
Mark, Brian, & Shrug,
Your discussion about left handed hammer and nail was LOL! Funnier than any of the comics. Come for comics, stay for the comments.
Comics I Don't Understand 
In at least 1 of the 18 “Dogs Playing Poker” paintings, two dogs actually are cheating. My Google search for the artist’s name always shows that painting (on my 1080 screen).
I had a real LOL from reading the restaurant one.
I liked the Understand-a-Mole one. Whac-a-Mole has recently come up in UK public discourse as our Prime Minister uses it to illustrate the city-by-city lockdown strategy to fight local Covid-19 outbreaks. But I gather that the game is essentially unwinnable, just artificially timed out – and as it progresses it seems like a poor analogy for pandemic control: starting slow, the game increases in speed “with more moles outside of their holes at the same time“.
Of course, understanding the moles is key to controlling the pandemic. Then maybe you can unscrew them at their base. (Apologies if this got marginally political!)
Yeah, I see at least two Aces of Spades, and two others that look like black Aces, can’t tell if Spades or Clubs. So somebody has been watering the wrong tree!
I haven’t been enjoying most “Priceless” comics lately, but this courtroom scene idea is a pip!
And as far as I’m concerned, the last word on Whac-a-Mole is Carmen Esposito’s standup “Guacamole”. I’ve marked this clip to start at 1:40 but that feature doesn’t always work; so if not, you might jump ahead manually, or just listen to her pleasantly political intro and know that the story will start soon.
*Cameron Esposito
“I haven’t been enjoying most “Priceless” comics lately, but this courtroom scene idea is a pip!”
Very real, too . . . that’s EXACTLY how I see the world without my glasses.
The cheating dog idea is good, but does it really need the observers and the speech bubble? Why not just draw the painting and caption it?
The last one would have been a touch more logical had the poor victim had a mallet instead of a claw hammer.
As far as the Benton painting goes, it reminded me of people who have their identities blurred. It’s a whole courtroom of those people.
@Grawlix – I think the “poor victim” was putting up the sign with the hammer, accidentally nailed himself to the sign, and had seriously insufficient training to free himself. (He could have used the claw to remove the nail, used the claw to dig up the sign, removed his jacket, … .)
>The last one would have been a touch more logical had the poor victim had a mallet instead of a claw hammer.
Naw…. the point is he has no survivalist skills at all. To not know how to use a claw hammer only *emphasizes* that.
Any logic to make the situation more difficult to solve serves to make the error and dying of it more acceptable and thus to *lessen* the humor and is thus *less* logical.
Thanks Kevin A. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on there. Good to see a fellow left-hander in the comics though, even if things didn’t work out very well for him.
Maybe if he’d had a left-handed hammer things would have gone better.
And was it a left-handed or a right-handed nail? Maybe the claw and the nail were simply incompatable, and he was doomed from the start.
The thing is that he’s a typical survivalist. Put all his skill points into weapons skills. He should have taken a point of carpentry (pulling out the nail). Or textile manufacture (taking off the coat). Or Logic (digging up the sign).
Mitch4. Cameron is a good standup, for sure.
More about dogs playing poker and the origins thereof: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/64108/15-things-you-should-know-about-dogs-playing-poker
Brian’s & Shrug’s comments reminded me of the junior carpenter who was tossing away half of the nails that he was supposed to be using to install panelling onto a wall. When the foreman asked why in the world he was throwing away 50% of the nails, he answered, “Oh, those have the head on the wrong end of the nail“, to which the foreman replied, “You idiot, those nails are for the other side of the room!”
Thanks for the Dogs Playing Poker information; I put the book mentioned in the article – Poplorica: A Popular History of the Fads, Mavericks, Inventions, and Lore that Shaped Modern America – on hold at my library. Always looking for new/unusual books to read.
Mark, Brian, & Shrug,
Your discussion about left handed hammer and nail was LOL! Funnier than any of the comics. Come for comics, stay for the comments.