My attempt to look up whether the first two panels have the accurate tartans for those clans was hampered by starting from a position of zero knowledge, and by what turned out to be a huge set of variants for any name. However, most samples of Sinclair Modern seem to have a lot more red than in the comic. Shrug. Anyway, the pun is in panel 3, and is pretty good.
It’s not uncommon for these two guys to end a conversation with that mutual exchange of “What?”. And actually I’m generally quite content with that and wouldn’t demand more punchline delivery.
When I first heard about a State of the Union speech I figured it must be to announce an award, and wondered if Florida had a chance.
Comics I Don't Understand 
The joke in Shoe is reel bad. But I guess I took the bait.
That last one made me LOL. Nice.
Great nerds think alike: the first thing I did when I saw that “Rhymes with Orange” strip last Sunday was look up the tartans for the Sinclair‘s and the Mackenzie‘s. The issue is complicated by the fact that both clans have “ancient” and “modern” versions, but I think the evidence suggests that the author did her homework.
I got to see an osprey fishing in the Mystic last summer. Just circling, then suddenly zip, snatch, & away with the catch. Really impressive.
Nitpick Alert:
Admittedly, I’m not a diehard Shoe fan, but I think I’ve seen the professor cast aspersions before. Flipping through the last couple of weeks’ of comics, I discovered he criticised a restaurant’s high prices, an unkempt movie theatre, the 2020 election, government employees and there was this gem: ‘Shoe is like a car alarm…lots of noise, but no one pays attention to him.’
Still, this comic made me smirk.
Clan Destine was also a Marvel comic in the 1990s.
What about Clan Chowder?
Metal people like The Iron Giant, Robby the Robot and the Daleks are members of Clan Kingly.
Ho Ho.
What about Clan Gorous?
I guess Cul de Sac has a new artist since I stopped following it – they look very odd to me, much simpler than I expected. I was thinking it was a parody strip (and it seemed an odd choice of strip to parody!).
According to Wikipedia, the strip ended in 2012. The cartoonist had Parkinson’s and at times there were guest artists and later a substitute inker.
@ Brian in StL – I believe that the guest artists did only the artwork, and that Thompson still did all the writing (as long as he was able). There were a number of interruptions, in which re-runs appeared, sometimes making the continuity difficult to follow.
P.S. Thompsons sporadic commentary to many of the strips in “The Complete Cul de Sac” is both interesting and entertaining, despite the gravity of the situation in his last years.
P.S. @ MiB – That joke’s got legs.
P^3.S. A very impressive Cul de Sac “guest” strip just happened to re-appear today:
P^4.S. That does prove that Thompson did not write all of the “guest” material. 😉