231 Comments

1. 

   Not just geezer stuff at work. Some of our participants are not from the USA, so references can elude them. I have to say that I hadn’t heard, “don’t yuck my yum” but I don’t find it confusing or hard to understand.

   I view a fair amount of cooking videos, and there are always that contingent in comments that announce that whatever was prepared is the most disgusting thing ever, or is being incorrectly prepared. Bonus points for insulting all Americans while at it.

2. 

   @ Brian – Even those of us who are from America (but don’t live there) will miss references that depend on being plugged into current American pop culture. I recognized the name of Mariah Carey, but I have absolutely no interest in her music, and certainly did not know about her claim to be “Queen of Christmas”. Similarly, I have no regrets about missing references to whatever odious sitcoms or Internet memes that may be currently fashionable in the US. That’s just another reason why I live “here“, and not “there”.

3. 

   For anyone that is interested, I discovered today (quite by accident), that Two Party Opera has started up again.

4. 

   @ guero – I’ve never followed it on a regular basis, but Two Party Opera has shown up unusually often when searching for other items at GoComics. The first “post-sabbatical” strip appeared on 6-Jan-2023, and daily updates resumed on Jan. 13th.

5. 

   Is there anyone else who finds the repeated references to “The Big Lebowski” in Mutts tiresome?

   

   P.S. I’ve never seen the movie, but I don’t think that would make these strips work.

6. 

   Well I have seen the movie, and like it pretty well, but have never understood the cult-like appeal it holds for some.

7. 

   @guero,

   Thanks for the tip about Two Party Opera.

8. 

   I notice that Perry Bible Fellowship has posted a lot of comics lately, and I don’t recognize any of them. Are they new?

9. 

   @ Chak – Just like other webcomics, The Perry Bible Fellowship has been “sporadic” for years, but you are right, there is a lot of relatively recent material. None of the comics is ever dated (not even in the archive list), but I know that the “Pumpkin Spice” comic is just over two years old, so (at least) 16 comics have appeared since January 2021.

   P.S. Nicholas Gurewitch is now attributing specific writing credits to his co-collaborators. Unfortunately, he is also actively monetizing the site through Patreon. At least two of the newer strips are just “teasers” to encourage donations.

10. 

    @ Chak – Sorry, I miscounted. The Jan. 2021 comic was “Clear Boundaries“, leaving 14 new PBF comics in the last two years, but the website also shows a set of 14 “collabortions”, some of which are definitely new.

11. 

    P.P.S. My sincerest ‘pologies for the missing “a”.

12. 

    “Beardo” apparently is also going for monetizing, and on GoComics publishes something like the “teasers” you mention.

13. 

    I think the focus on color Patreon strips is the primary reason why Bug Martini has become so unbelievably “sporadic” with the regular (monochrome) strips (they used to appear three times a week, before the author had a pair of kids – which of course is an eminently good reason not to be drawing comics for a living).

14. 

    Email I got today from the MyChart system starts out:

    Hello PROXYFNAME@,

15. 

    

16. 

    An interesting strip is ending:

    

17. 

    A dogged attempt to learn a foreign language:

    

    (Actually, that was the caption of a cartoon that I recall seeing posted on the Linguistics Department physical bulletin board in the eighties, where the comic’s drawing was of a dog with a teaching tape, struggling to repeat “meow”.)

18. 

    @ Mitch – It would be interesting to know how the sound of a dog barking is normally written in Spanish. At one point I collected a long list comparing typical (written) animal noises in English and German. For instance, a German rooster (“der Hahn“) says “kiekeriki“, Germans find “cock-a-doodle-doo” very strange and amusing.

    P.S. There’s a series called Karambolage on the dual French/German network “Arte”. Every Sunday evening, the show compares and contrasts interesting details about French and German culture. One recurring topic are the typical sounds used for various animals or events. For instance, a rock falling into a pond might go “splash” or “kerplunk” in English, but Germans say “plumps“, and the French sound is something like “ploofeh“.

    P.P.S. For those of us who have never seen the “interesting strip” before, could you give us a link or at least its name?

19. 

    P.P.P.S. Cancel that request, searching for the names in the copyright line led (in)directly to “Mount Pleasant“:

    

20. 

    Multilingual dog dictionary:
    https://tinyurl.com/yc7r5777

21. 

    Thanks, Shrug

22. 

    @ Shrug – Ditto on Mitch – that was quite interesting!

23. 

    I regret to report that the links given above for “Mount Pleasant” at GoComics have become invalid, even though the resource links to the image files still work. Although one might have thought that GoComics would have turned the feature into a click-collecting zombie (as they have often done with other strips), in this case they have simply eliminated the feature entirely, less than two days after the appearance of the last farewell strip. This shows GoComics’ typical (non-existent) respect for the artists that produce their content. I’m simply glad I captured that example before the URL vanished.

24. 

    Looking at the strip, it was distributed by Tribune Content Agency. Generally the decision about strips are with the syndicate, most often Universal/Andrews McMeel, which is also the parent of GoComics.

25. 

    And these dogs may need that multilingual dog dictionary from above:

    

26. 

    There’s a counting book called “Dogs” by Sandra Boynton, in which each number is represented by a corresponding set of canine noises:

    

27. 

    @Kilby, back in January and the ‘pumpkin spice’ comic – “. . . but I know that the “Pumpkin Spice” comic is just over two years old, . . . ”

    WHEN it’s cold enough for 1) scarf; and 2) Pumpkin [pie] spice coffee, it’s too cold for mosquitos. Comic logic, I know, but still . . .

28. 

    An episode of “Family Guy” played with the animal noise trope:

29. 

    I suppose according to a certain Far Side comic, if you had a translator, those ten dogs would just be saying “Hey! Hey! Hey!”

30. 

    @ Grawlix – Boyton’s dogs are just counting from one to ten, but Larson’s dogs are doing exactly what you said:

    

31. 

    A nicely indirect way to deliver the DST reminder:

    

32. 

    Just ran into a Twitter account that posts Peanuts cartoons from 50 years ago by date. Thus today’s is

    

    The account page is

    https://twitter.com/peanuts50yrsago?s=11&t=NOnkR4kVBTFlq37wzJ9J-A

33. 

    Arlo is planting Impatiens

    

34. 

    @ Mitch – I deleted my Twitter account when they doubled the bandwidth of the sewer from 140 to 280 characters per twit, but that link shows that somebody has way too much time on his hands. Of course, it is entirely possible that the contents of the feed are being captured with a script. All you would need to do is call up the URL

    https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/{YYYY-50}/{MM}/{DD}

    (for instance: https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1973/03/21)

    … and then the script can extract the image URL from the GC website’s HTML. Still, it seems easier to me to just call up the GC URL, and avoid padding Elon Musk’s traffic targets.

35. 

    There are a number of Facebook and Twitter pages with old comics. Some are posted daily in the Gasoline Alley comments by “Gweedo -it’s legal here- Murray”. I knew it was possible to have links to a specific comment, but it wasn’t obvious how other than through the notification system. I figured out a way, at least one that worked in testing.

    https://www.gocomics.com/gasolinealley/2023/3/21?comments=visible&replies=visible&comment_id=52397815

36. 

    Kilby, I don’t see that you’re taking into account that “easier” is relative to a goal. If someone is going to be looking for a Peanuts for a particular date, your method would indeed be easier. But if the goal is to now and then have a Peanuts from 50-years-ago-today delivered to your screen without even doing anything really directed towards that, then my method is easier, as it doesn’t need me to do anything else — it’s already set up as something like a subscription.

    Edit to add: Yes of course that account is a “bot” operating from a script. There are several interesting literary ones — a sequential posting of Ulysses every ten minutes, a posting from Howl that I think (I haven’t checked closely) is random rather than sequential or actively curated, a Facebook feed of Samuel Beckett passages that I think is actively human-curated.

37. 

    @ Mitch – It may be convenient, but it’s still a duplication of effort. GoComics offers strips delivered to your e-mail address and the option of setting up customized comic pages (at least with a paid subscription). There’s also the “Classic Peanuts” feature, which stated off synchronized, but is slowly becoming unstuck, because the current calendar is still skipping the Sunday strips.

38. 

    But the GoComics customization (for both email and browser viewing) allows just the selection of “features”, not selection of dates or crafted URLs. They will feed their vintage Peanuts feature, but send whatever date they are publishing that day.

    Certainly the process of “following” that 50-years-ago-today Twitter bot would make no sense for someone who is not already dipping into the Twitter stream. For someone who does already use Twitter, it is a one-time step. There is no duplication of effort.

39. 

    Today’s “Mutts” has an amusing take on canine linguistics:

    

40. 

    Talk about a cartoonist keeping in touch with fans!

    

41. 

    @ Mitch – When (or where) did the “correction” appear? I found the original map (on April 1st):

    

    … but couldn’t find the panels shown above.

    IIRC, Georgia Dunn is going to have surgery on her right hand, and will be on sick leave for a short while, so there will be re-runs in the pipeline (but showing up later).

42. 

    The correction was on Twitter.

43. 

    Questions, so many question… How are they expanding an apartment? Expanding, but still only one bathroom, that apparently you have to go through the living room to get to? And now, with the correction, the only way to the living room is through the nursery (or possibly the old bedroom)?

44. 

    They bought out (in cooperation with other tenants) a portion of the building that was being used for another purpose. And then,I suppose, knocked out a bit of interior wall?

45. 

    And what, added an external catwalk? How does that hallway work? If it was already existing and there is more building on the other side of it that they don’t own, then how did the nursery ever have windows? (Yes, I am massively over-thinking this, but that’s what we do around here, isn’t it?)

46. 

    larK, check out the bracket noting “New” on both my comment and Kilby’s of the original map. The hallway is I believe “old” in its left-right portion and the branch that goes down to the nursery. The branch of the hallway that goes up to the new bedroom and temporary storeroom is new (as are those rooms).

    The issue of the hallway blocking the nursery window is not because of the addition — it was just a mistake in the drawing or planning. AFAICT.

47. 

    Yes, Georgia reads and occasionally posts in the GoComics comments.

48. 

    Probably seen this before, but I just ran across it again and thought to share it here

    

49. 

    Gene Weingarten’s latest “Gene Pool” has a lot to say about publishing “Peanuts” reruns, with a side jab at “Hagar”. Please note that some of the article and a lot of the reader’s comments are decidedly NSFW (both for language and for political content).

50. 

    Does anyone recognize the melody that Horace is playing in the DSotH-logo?

    

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