Thanks to chemgal who sent this in and says it “was a literal LOL for me”.
I guess it’s a Eww-LOL..
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Wait, is that a Mallard Fillmore?
@ Dana K – I’m shocked, too. According to Wikipedia, “[since] March 9, 2020, new comics of Mallard Fillmore have been produced under the signature of a different artist, [Loren] Fishman…“. There’s nothing there that indicates whether the strip’s politics have changed since then, although the apolitical nature of this example is perhaps a hopeful sign.
It may be geezeritis, but the Andertoon is a CIDU for me. I see the castle, I see the trebuchet (or is it a catapult?), but I don’t see the humour.
It took me a minute to spot, but there’s a basketball hoop on the castle.
Am I being a curmudgeon? Zits and Dustin are both irritating to me. Lazy kids and enabling, long-suffering parents. That saying ‘Home is where if you go there, they have to take you in’ doesn’t mean they have to keep you forever, does it?
I know, I know, there’d be no strip if the kids got jobs. Maybe that would be a good thing.
I don’t much like Robert Frost, but in ‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in. ‘ the cleverness is I think in the very canny ordering of the clauses.
The difference between “Zits” and “Dustin” is that the former is a high school student and the other is not. He’s a college graduate “boomerang”.
Ooten Aboot: That’s kind of like an onager. A trebuchet has a long arm powered by a heavy counterweight. Both are types of catapult.
Mark M: Thanks for pointing out the basket. I had missed it, too.
Dana K and Kilby: I don’t see a Mallard Fillmore here. Even if the strip has veered off of politics, doesn’t it always feature that dimwitted duck?
And that “boomerangs” phenomenon gave the title for another strip:
Here it’s Jane (the mom in this episode) who boomeranged back to her parental home, and she is a bit older than Dustin I think. (The girl is Syd and their family name is Tinker, with the result for her standard username that is the joke here.)
@Chak, okay, yes, Jeremy is being lazy, but I don’t see how the dad is enabling in this comic, since Jeremy ends up having to shovel the snow.
@ Boise Ed – The duck is still dimwitted, but thankfully he doesn’t appear in every strip(*). The syndicate is still running it under Tinsley’s name, but the artwork shows Fishman’s signature.
P.S. I considered estimating the percentage of strips that contained the duck, but I wasn’t able to read a statistically significant sample.
@ Boise Ed – You misunderstood the meaning of why I “wasn’t able”. Arcamax offers almost as many strips as Comics Kingdom (currently all the way back to January 23rd), but indigestion led me to quit after about ten strips. I just wasn’t able to stomach that duck.
There’s also a considerable difference in tone, particularly as it relates to young people.
That’s the advantage of the archive, even though it only has like 30 days. A quick scan indicates something like 19 of those recent ones have the Duck, either alone or talking to someone. I don’t know if that’s statistically meaningful.
The stinker one reminds me of how the Little Pup wound up without a middle name. Should have used her mother’s as a middle, but it was 5 am & nobody was brilliant.
It hasn’t held her back.
@ Brian in StL – Apologies for the misdirected attribution in my previous comment. I think the most significant statistical result is that you were able to survive three times as many strips as I was able to read.
Oh, I hadn’t noticed as I thought Boise Ed must have had something upthread similar. At any rate, I didn’t read any of the strips. The Seattle PI archive is all on one page,where you can just see a thumbnail of each one.
Well, there was a strip a long time ago where the kid got a job: Jerry On-The-Job.
Brian: Congratulations on stomaching it long enough to count the duck appearances.(Ah. Later, I see that you didn’t actually read them, but just performed image recognition.)
Kilby: I do understand that indigestion. MF (Mallard Fillmore; what did you think I meant?) was off the deep end long before the current batch of disciples.
Thanks Mark M. I could have stared at that for a week. I think even I could draw a better representation of a basketball goal. I wouldn’t use a straightedge!
Later, I see that you didn’t actually read them, but just performed image recognition
Comics I Don't Understand 
Wait, is that a Mallard Fillmore?
@ Dana K – I’m shocked, too. According to Wikipedia, “[since] March 9, 2020, new comics of Mallard Fillmore have been produced under the signature of a different artist, [Loren] Fishman…“. There’s nothing there that indicates whether the strip’s politics have changed since then, although the apolitical nature of this example is perhaps a hopeful sign.
It may be geezeritis, but the Andertoon is a CIDU for me. I see the castle, I see the trebuchet (or is it a catapult?), but I don’t see the humour.
It took me a minute to spot, but there’s a basketball hoop on the castle.
Am I being a curmudgeon? Zits and Dustin are both irritating to me. Lazy kids and enabling, long-suffering parents. That saying ‘Home is where if you go there, they have to take you in’ doesn’t mean they have to keep you forever, does it?
I know, I know, there’d be no strip if the kids got jobs. Maybe that would be a good thing.
I don’t much like Robert Frost, but in ‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in. ‘ the cleverness is I think in the very canny ordering of the clauses.
The difference between “Zits” and “Dustin” is that the former is a high school student and the other is not. He’s a college graduate “boomerang”.
Ooten Aboot: That’s kind of like an onager. A trebuchet has a long arm powered by a heavy counterweight. Both are types of catapult.
Mark M: Thanks for pointing out the basket. I had missed it, too.
Dana K and Kilby: I don’t see a Mallard Fillmore here. Even if the strip has veered off of politics, doesn’t it always feature that dimwitted duck?
And that “boomerangs” phenomenon gave the title for another strip:
Here it’s Jane (the mom in this episode) who boomeranged back to her parental home, and she is a bit older than Dustin I think. (The girl is Syd and their family name is Tinker, with the result for her standard username that is the joke here.)
@Chak, okay, yes, Jeremy is being lazy, but I don’t see how the dad is enabling in this comic, since Jeremy ends up having to shovel the snow.
@ Boise Ed – The duck is still dimwitted, but thankfully he doesn’t appear in every strip(*). The syndicate is still running it under Tinsley’s name, but the artwork shows Fishman’s signature.
P.S. I considered estimating the percentage of strips that contained the duck, but I wasn’t able to read a statistically significant sample.
You can see an archive of recent strips here:
https://v7.comicskingdom.net/comics/mallard-fillmore/archive/
@ Boise Ed – You misunderstood the meaning of why I “wasn’t able”. Arcamax offers almost as many strips as Comics Kingdom (currently all the way back to January 23rd), but indigestion led me to quit after about ten strips. I just wasn’t able to stomach that duck.
There’s also a considerable difference in tone, particularly as it relates to young people.
That’s the advantage of the archive, even though it only has like 30 days. A quick scan indicates something like 19 of those recent ones have the Duck, either alone or talking to someone. I don’t know if that’s statistically meaningful.
The stinker one reminds me of how the Little Pup wound up without a middle name. Should have used her mother’s as a middle, but it was 5 am & nobody was brilliant.
It hasn’t held her back.
@ Brian in StL – Apologies for the misdirected attribution in my previous comment. I think the most significant statistical result is that you were able to survive three times as many strips as I was able to read.
Oh, I hadn’t noticed as I thought Boise Ed must have had something upthread similar. At any rate, I didn’t read any of the strips. The Seattle PI archive is all on one page,where you can just see a thumbnail of each one.
Well, there was a strip a long time ago where the kid got a job: Jerry On-The-Job.
Brian: Congratulations on stomaching it long enough to count the duck appearances.(Ah. Later, I see that you didn’t actually read them, but just performed image recognition.)
Kilby: I do understand that indigestion. MF (Mallard Fillmore; what did you think I meant?) was off the deep end long before the current batch of disciples.
Thanks Mark M. I could have stared at that for a week. I think even I could draw a better representation of a basketball goal. I wouldn’t use a straightedge!
Later, I see that you didn’t actually read them, but just performed image recognition
“Click all images with a Duck.”