Month / May 2022

by EditorM

You thought we couldn’t do another collection of Oopsies, Quickies, We-can-improve-its, Semi-CIDUs, Mysteries, and flops? (12th Series)

Thanks to Dana K for this Today’s Szep. The main joke is easy enough: the mere unlikely existence of this rack and these categories of card message. But what is all that ancillary action supposed to be about? Do these two know each other? Or is the woman just a judgemental bystander? Is she saying something, or just standing there with her jaw dropping?

On the first hand, this seems to me an excellent job of working out a technical experiment in the art of cartooning. Color-coding the speech bubbles could represent an improvement on trying to aim the pointers with precision, or stretching them around, or finding a basis for making the comic multi-panel so the dialogue can be rearranged.

But OTOH, the content of the dialogue is miles away from being at all funny. And is not even folk-wise, in that pseudo-deep way Frazz is so fond of trying.

Here’s a FoxTrot sent in by Kilby for the Oopses list. He says there is a real-world chronology error in showing Alpha-bits cereal in a current cartoon scene. “Alphabits was taken off the market in 2006, and made only brief periodic re-appearances, before disappearing again a year ago (May 2021). [Wikipedia link] The reason I checked is that I was not able to find them the last time I visited Washington. It’s possibe that Bill Amend is writing his strips a whole year in advance, but I seriously doubt it.”

Kilby also presents a judgement dilemma. “When a cartoonist recycles an ancient joke (albeit with ‘improvements’), is it better (A) To admit the crime, or (B) Just pretend that nobody will notice how ancient the gag really is?”

(A)

(B)

A classic case of “Oops!” from Le Vieux Lapin. Oops, I forgot to draw a cloud that looks like a comma.

by EditorM

Whatting their whats?

(If you think the Carolyn Hax column where this appeared might explain it, you can try this freebie link and read it for yourself. But I thought the connection was barely discernible.)

Afterthought. — This had already been in the queue for about a week, with the title “Whatting their whats?” as still shown, when I happened on this Frog Applause and wanted to postscript it for the wording.

by EditorM

Like a brick doghouse (bonus cidu)

Stan sent this in and provided a summation of the storyline that led up to it.

Stan’s summary: “Got a head-scratcher here… Peanuts had a running storyline of Snoopy getting obsessed with the idea of a big bad wolf coming to blow his doghouse down. To calm him, Lucy draws some lines on the doghouse to make it look like it’s made of bricks to thwart potential lupine attacks. Then this strip comes along. I haven’t got a clue what Snoopy is going on about.”

Mitch’s response: “Thanks for explaining the backstory!  That explains what has happened that annoys him so much: the rain has erased the brick design.  I guess his verbal expression of annoyance is meant to resemble the sort of cute-colorful countryisms at one time associated with Dan Rather, or some TV old lady who said something about grits.  Only, he’s not a country-and-western  dog , so he comes up with some other annoying thing to compare it with.  But he is just giving it as a comic comparison, not saying anything actually about heating pads. Nor any connection to the brick doghouse story, either.”

But is that funny? Does it require some substantial point of connection?

For your context & amusement, here are some of the strips establishing that story: