Month / October 2021

by EditorM

Random: New Yorker non-contest non-captioned cartoons bit

Frequent CIDU contributor Ooten Aboot (aka “Canadian Raising Is Real”) sent for our enjoyment news of The New Yorker working to out-do themselves with a variant on their widely-beloved Caption Contest. It’s a series of drawings, mostly by their cartoon artists, and mostly lacking captions, presented online as a “Daily Shouts” humor feature.

The intro write-up, by Dahlia Gallin Ramirez, goes like this:

Once a year, a team of demons at The New Yorker provides “cartoons” in need of captions. You, the readers—so full of hope, so charmingly mortal—upset yourselves trying to think of jokes. There are no submissions, no finalists, and no votes, but there are winners: the evil beings who created these uncaptionable images. Good luck!

We can’t print here any pictures that are their current content, but here’s that link again!

by EditorM

Sunday Funnies and Minor Mysteries – LOLs and Semi-CIDUs, October 10th, 2021

Eats, shoots, and leaves.

Minor Mysteries

These are comics that somebody thought were pretty good, or even full LOL, and not baffling but a little hard to pin down. Like, you can think of a rather plausible explanation of the chuckle — or maybe two! — but there’s nothing that clinches the case that *this* or *that* just has to be the key to what’s going on.

For example, with something like this Andertoons, we might think of the minor mystery as expressed in terms of providing the missing caption. Is it about the odd feeling you’re being watched? Or more like “Oh, where did I set down my glasses?”. It could be either, do you agree?

A Minor Mystery from Darren, who says “I can’t tell if Watson’s jarns need to be interpreted as a specific term.  I’m flummoxed.  Apparently the squirrel is as well?”

Okay, the joke here is that the threatened punishment will involve a cannister vacuum cleaner (in what seems to be a photo clip?) rather than a conventional physical beating or the like. But it’s an unanswerable mystery just what the threat is. Torture by exposure to noisy motor, like a household pet? Being inhaled altogether? Having some portion of his body inhaled?

by EditorM

Saturday Morning Oys – October 9th, 2021

Boise Ed recommends Doc Rat, and this Oy from the October 1 front page at Docrat.com.au was more available than others.

A CIDU-Oy of sorts, sent in by Usual John, who says “This is from Brevity, so it presumably is some kind of Oy, but I really don’t get it. I guess this is a version of Doc Holliday, but why is he offering to be my huckleberry?”

And indeed Brevity is generally going to yield up some species of OY, as here:

by EditorM

Tuna breath

Texts from Mittens is almost always an SMS-based texting conversation between a cat and his owner (or “Mom”, occasionally “Mama”), in a layout imitating display on a phone screen. Never a drawing or other image of the kind we associate with comics.

Sometimes a different character gets in the conversation. I just today looked at the Characters tab on GoComics, which sort of answers a couple of my long-standing questions. But there are no answers anywhere to fundamental questions or consistent treatment of his unusual abilities (does he tap out messages with a paw on a physical phone, or send them via mental/physical magic connection?), his contact list, his mix of knowledge and ignorance about the human world. Oh never mind, it’s all just for cat people to read and indulgently sigh in recognition. He gets a little shirty but loves his Mom, okay?

In this one, of course Mittens likes tuna smells. But is Mom taking that into account? Or is she thinking by habit of how tuna breath would affect human companions and coworkers?

by EditorM

Originally “chalk pencil”

Thanks to Carl Fink for sending this in. He says “I do understand the joke, but …” and then details ways he can’t understand how such bad drawing can pass itself off as professional cartooning.

Meanwhile, the usual gang of idiot at CIDU HQ Central has to confess that I don’t completely understand the joke. Is it a tradition in this family that “our mealtimes will be like going out to a nice restaurant”? Does the dad’s remark to what Carl calls “the monstrosity” daughter presuppose something like that?

by EditorM

A chloral? A bromide? A Mickey Finn? A bone in her teeth? A switch of a swatch?

Our first A&J is from Mark M, who asks “Why does she feel that way at 3 o’clock?  Is this an example of an overreaction as CIDU Bill used to talk about?”

Possibly the discussion of overreaction Mark is thinking of included this thread.

(For a quick factual overview of “sleeping pills”, here is a web excerpt from a book by Wallace B. Mendelson, MD.)

And Jack Applin sent in another puzzling A&J. He says: “I do not understand this Arlo & Janis. Arlo speaks of the expression bone in her teeth, explaining how it comes from the bow wave of a fast-moving boat. OK, sure. However, the way the he says it implies that this is a standard expression, used in other contexts. “

“I might say Do you know where the expression ‘read the riot act’ came from?, because people use that without reference to the 1714 act of the Parliament of Great Britain, e.g., when their mother caught them coming home late.. Who says bone in her teeth without referring to a bow wave?”

by EditorM

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, October 3rd, 2021

under the remaining five red baidagko

The last few weeks I’ve felt that Wrong Hands has been a bit off their best form. But this one seems a good case of returning to their former standard.

So here is another Wrong Hands, sent in by Philip, who notes that as an Oy it would be tripartite. (Have we seen this one before?)

I have never sat down on a cat …. that did not immediately make the situation known! :-)

Six of one, half-dozen of the other, sent by Phil Smith III

(Also adding in another Condron as he was unfamiliar to me.)