Are all of them possible “jumpers” in their own contexts?
Here’s that Sad-LOL promised in the Tags.
And from DollarBill, a Fusco Brothers LOL with some Meta or 4thWall aspects:
Related
35 Comments
I think that the answer in “The Argyle Sweater” has to be the checker. The officer is talking to a checker on a checkerboard, so the only one with which that checker would have interacted would be another checker. (And I don’t think that “jumping” is a part of all the other games represented.)
I don’t quite understand the contention that mailboxes are an endangered species. As long as there’s a Postal Service people will need a place to drop mail for them to deliver.
I agree with SteveHL that it has to be the (red) checker. The only other piece that “jumps” in that sense is the (white) knight. The die does “bounce” when cast, but that hardly counts as a “jump”. In Monopoly, all pieces can coexist on the same square, or pass unimpeded. It’s not clear to which game the blue piece belongs, but in most “racetrack” games, the pieces simply “pass” each other, or throw the opponent’s piece out (back to the beginning), but there is a rule in some Parcheesi variants that treats a pair of pieces (of the same color) as an impassible barrier for all other pieces.
P.S. The only other “jumping” pieces that I can think of right now would be a marble from “Chinese Checkers”, or the markers used in “Mill”, a.k.a. “Nine Men’s Morris” (but only in the end phase of that game).
P.P.S. @ Powers – Given the way that DeJoy’s USPS has been reducing services lately, it’s only a matter of time before they require customers to drop their letters off at the nearest Post Office, even if it is located in the next county (or state).
How prescient Keith Knight was (his strips are in reruns). If you read Comic Strip of the Day, you will realize how comics are being dropped from dead tree newspapers, left and right (that’s NOT a political comment).
The piece between the knight and the die looks to me like a Sorry token. Sorry tokens do jump other pieces in the game, and it is usually a bad thing for the other player, just as in checkers.
I’m guessing that the real culprit, not identified by the American police, was a British visitor, possibly ex-military, known as Woolly Pulley.
I’m not aware of any games where dice can jump you, and while Monopoly tokens can pass each other, it’s not really jumping. The joke is probably another Cow Tools, where all of the non-checkers are supposed to be obvious wrong answers, but the artist accidentally created just enough extra meaning (Sorry pieces jump in a game mechanical sense, Knights go over pieces) to make readers wonder if everything was supposed to make sense.
Is it too soon to resort to the GoComics comments? While I would agree with SteveHL here and Kilby that only a checker could jump a checker, I reject the point from Kilby and dvandom that passing on a track cannot count as jumping — it’s just that it wouldn’t be jumping the checker. So I like the GoComics comments that list games where the pieces shown can very reasonably be said to jump — “Yahtzee, Sorry, Chess, Checkers and Monopoly” or ” Yahtzee, Parcheesi, Chess, Checkers and Monopoly” or “I took the first one as Farkle” .
On a slightly different tack, the implied procedure here is not in line with how an American line-up or British identity parade actually works … er, as seen on serious police/mystery TV 🙂 … The point is not to have several suspects in the line-up and let the witness make an accusing choice — but rather to have just one suspect along with several somewhat-resembling but non-suspected filler or decoy candidates.
How, exactly, does one break an anvil?
The difference between a “jump” (as in checkers or Chinese checkers) and a “pass” (in Monopoly or parcheesi) is that the jump allows the piece to go farther (in comparison to a normal move). Passing in Monopoly is not a “jump”, because the occupied square is counted the same way as if it were empty, so that the moving piece has no advantage. The knight’s jump in chess does not extend its normal range, but it does allow the knight to move in ways that are impossible for all other pieces. The pawn’s option allowing it to move two squares on its first move could (in some ways) be considered a “jump”; this could also apply to the resulting “en-passant” response permitted for the defender’s pawn.
“The later is back” is right outta the Green Acres comedy from the sixties, Lisa would always see producers credits, etc. in the most unexpected places.
Chester, on a recent TV series (might have been “Murder is My Life”) I noticed them putting series and episode titles into the scenery in one way or another. I don’t think the characters walking past them did any pointing out etc.
Yes, that’s in “Murder is My Life,” Mitch.
“How, exactly, does one break an anvil?
Haul it into the precinct interrogation room, put the strong light directly in its eyes, and let the cops keep insisting that “Your pal, the Hammer, is just about to talk, so this is your last chance to cut a bargain in that Black Smith’s mob case.”
If that doesn’t work, try giving it to a starving coyote.
I’m afraid that “later” is a CIDU for me.
The Fusco Bros comic is funny as it is, but you can indeed show motion in a single panel. 🙂
@ chemgal – Notes like that “Later…” are frequently seen in comic books (less often in multi-panel strips), to inform the reader of a time delay between the panels. In this case it’s a “fourth wall” gag: since “The Far Side” was almost always a single panel, there’s no possibility for a time separation, and it’s also not “normal” for the comic’s characters to be able to “see” the artist’s “framing” elements.
P.S. As an alternative example, what if she had said, “Ed, I just wish Mr. Larson would let me speak to you in Times Roman, instead of this boring Helvetica.”
P.P.S. @ Grawlix – Here’s the Bloom County guide for those “motion” indicators:
Thanks to Kilby, Grawlix, et al, for linking or alluding to the studies of graphics indicators in comix. Of course, in case there’s anyone here for whom it doesn’t ring a bell, Grawlix is a perfect pseudo to engage in that sort of dialogue, as a term from Mort Walker’s 1980 Lexicon.
@ Mitch – I remember being frustrated at not being able to find that “Lexikon” the first time it was mentioned here at CIDU. This time I gave up on Amazon and looked it up at Wikipedia.
The funny thing about the “Later” and the Green Acres credits mentioned earlier is the characters are reading text that would appear backwards to them, which isn’t always easy to do quickly.
P.S. Armed with the correct title (“The Lexicon of Comicana“), it was perfectly easy to find the book, both at Amazon.com and at Amazon.de – but that doesn’t make it purchasable. Prices (for used copies) ranged from $200 to $430. Gadzooks!
The cover image made me hope that “goodreads” might also offer some of the content, but alas, no; it was fundamentally equivalent to the information offered by Wikipedia, plus a link to Amazon that I didn’t bother trying out. I can’t see paying $2 to $4 per page for a 96-page paperback.
How exactly does one break an anvil?
You get Siegfried to slice it in half with the freshly-reforged sword Nothung.
I was thinking this anvil is on its way to getting broken — but then, maybe not. One way or another it might get a soft landing.
I was hoping the blog I posted would be of more help, but it appears incomplete as of yet.
40 plus years ago we started our handcrafted business when we lived in a garden apartment building (the 2 story, looks sort of looks like huge house setup) and did not want any trouble from using same as our business address we opened a USPS box in the nearest post office. (Oddly this PO was not the one for our apartment or for our house which is even closer to the PO where we opened the box.)
While living in this house (lived in apartment 9 years before moving here) we had trouble with mail deliveries which reached the point where we were getting mail for people on streets we never heard of (and Robert has lived in the general community since he was 7 yeah,we lived near my in-laws) as well having our mail go astray. So we switched our mailing address for almost everything to the box.
Since I worked from home on days I did not go to clients (meaning most days I was home) I would go daily to the PO to check the box for mail and post outgoing mail and we continued to do this after Robert retired/quit his job. When the pandemic hit we went through the second week of March 2020 and then went on the last 2 Sundays in same – around 11 pm to avoid being in the PO with people.
We then tried to get our mail forwarded to our house – problem was business box – could only forward mail addressed to the business. The staff at the PO went above and beyond helping us – mailing us large envelopes with the mail since it could not be forwarded and eventually helping us change the box to a personal one in my name so the mail could be forwarded.
Our not wanting to go to into the PO led to our leaving our outgoing mail in our house mail box (with the flag up) and the (most appreciated) carrier picking it up for us – I left it on Sunday nights for the week. Then we hit a snag – tax returns to go to client would not stay in the clip in our box and would fall into the part of the box not accessible without a key, so we found a local collection box to use. (I had not used a collection box since 3 unrelated & in different parts of NYC/LI where collection boxes were set on fire with the mail in them – which is why we had not been using same.)
Now we go out on either on Sunday nights to post off the outgoing mail or on Mondays if we are going out for lunch in one or another of 3 different boxes we have found to use (and now they no longer open as they did – just a slit to push the mail through so much safer). I do know there used to be a collection box 2 blocks from our house as when we first we moved in I posted mail there a few times, but it is apparently gone and we need to drive to get a box despite living on a 4 lane main road.
So there are fewer boxes than there were, but still a good number so them – so far (and depending on which box we use we are posting our mail in one of 3 different communities/post office’s areas.
Grawlix said: I was hoping the blog I posted would be of more help, but it appears incomplete as of yet.
Sorry, I’m missing the continuity here. Help with what? In any case, we don’t seem to have anything in “Pending” (moderation) nor Spam that is waiting approval.
Sorry for the confusion. I just meant to join in with the wishes for seeing the complete contents of The Lexicon Of Comicana. The comic book glossary blog I had linked to borrows heavily from that book, but so far that blog appears to have posted only random bits from it.
That’s all I meant to say.
@ Mitch – The blog-link that Grawlix posted is now buried in the middle of the comments:
Ah thanks for clearing that up. I did in fact see the post and follow the link to read the Hites entry, which does give an answer to the question posed in the comic. But I didn’t make the connection from Grawlix’s later post.
Comics I Don't Understand 
I think that the answer in “The Argyle Sweater” has to be the checker. The officer is talking to a checker on a checkerboard, so the only one with which that checker would have interacted would be another checker. (And I don’t think that “jumping” is a part of all the other games represented.)
I don’t quite understand the contention that mailboxes are an endangered species. As long as there’s a Postal Service people will need a place to drop mail for them to deliver.
I agree with SteveHL that it has to be the (red) checker. The only other piece that “jumps” in that sense is the (white) knight. The die does “bounce” when cast, but that hardly counts as a “jump”. In Monopoly, all pieces can coexist on the same square, or pass unimpeded. It’s not clear to which game the blue piece belongs, but in most “racetrack” games, the pieces simply “pass” each other, or throw the opponent’s piece out (back to the beginning), but there is a rule in some Parcheesi variants that treats a pair of pieces (of the same color) as an impassible barrier for all other pieces.
P.S. The only other “jumping” pieces that I can think of right now would be a marble from “Chinese Checkers”, or the markers used in “Mill”, a.k.a. “Nine Men’s Morris” (but only in the end phase of that game).
P.P.S. @ Powers – Given the way that DeJoy’s USPS has been reducing services lately, it’s only a matter of time before they require customers to drop their letters off at the nearest Post Office, even if it is located in the next county (or state).
How prescient Keith Knight was (his strips are in reruns). If you read Comic Strip of the Day, you will realize how comics are being dropped from dead tree newspapers, left and right (that’s NOT a political comment).
The piece between the knight and the die looks to me like a Sorry token. Sorry tokens do jump other pieces in the game, and it is usually a bad thing for the other player, just as in checkers.
I’m guessing that the real culprit, not identified by the American police, was a British visitor, possibly ex-military, known as Woolly Pulley.
https://outdoorknitwear.com/en/crew-neck/16-woolly-pully-nato-crew-neck-sweater.html
I’m not aware of any games where dice can jump you, and while Monopoly tokens can pass each other, it’s not really jumping. The joke is probably another Cow Tools, where all of the non-checkers are supposed to be obvious wrong answers, but the artist accidentally created just enough extra meaning (Sorry pieces jump in a game mechanical sense, Knights go over pieces) to make readers wonder if everything was supposed to make sense.
Is it too soon to resort to the GoComics comments? While I would agree with SteveHL here and Kilby that only a checker could jump a checker, I reject the point from Kilby and dvandom that passing on a track cannot count as jumping — it’s just that it wouldn’t be jumping the checker. So I like the GoComics comments that list games where the pieces shown can very reasonably be said to jump — “Yahtzee, Sorry, Chess, Checkers and Monopoly” or ” Yahtzee, Parcheesi, Chess, Checkers and Monopoly” or “I took the first one as Farkle” .
On a slightly different tack, the implied procedure here is not in line with how an American line-up or British identity parade actually works … er, as seen on serious police/mystery TV 🙂 … The point is not to have several suspects in the line-up and let the witness make an accusing choice — but rather to have just one suspect along with several somewhat-resembling but non-suspected filler or decoy candidates.
How, exactly, does one break an anvil?
The difference between a “jump” (as in checkers or Chinese checkers) and a “pass” (in Monopoly or parcheesi) is that the jump allows the piece to go farther (in comparison to a normal move). Passing in Monopoly is not a “jump”, because the occupied square is counted the same way as if it were empty, so that the moving piece has no advantage. The knight’s jump in chess does not extend its normal range, but it does allow the knight to move in ways that are impossible for all other pieces. The pawn’s option allowing it to move two squares on its first move could (in some ways) be considered a “jump”; this could also apply to the resulting “en-passant” response permitted for the defender’s pawn.
“The later is back” is right outta the Green Acres comedy from the sixties, Lisa would always see producers credits, etc. in the most unexpected places.
Chester, on a recent TV series (might have been “Murder is My Life”) I noticed them putting series and episode titles into the scenery in one way or another. I don’t think the characters walking past them did any pointing out etc.
Yes, that’s in “Murder is My Life,” Mitch.
“How, exactly, does one break an anvil?
Haul it into the precinct interrogation room, put the strong light directly in its eyes, and let the cops keep insisting that “Your pal, the Hammer, is just about to talk, so this is your last chance to cut a bargain in that Black Smith’s mob case.”
If that doesn’t work, try giving it to a starving coyote.
I’m afraid that “later” is a CIDU for me.
The Fusco Bros comic is funny as it is, but you can indeed show motion in a single panel. 🙂
https://comicbookglossary.wordpress.com/hites/
(an interesting reference blog in itself.)
@ chemgal – Notes like that “Later…” are frequently seen in comic books (less often in multi-panel strips), to inform the reader of a time delay between the panels. In this case it’s a “fourth wall” gag: since “The Far Side” was almost always a single panel, there’s no possibility for a time separation, and it’s also not “normal” for the comic’s characters to be able to “see” the artist’s “framing” elements.
P.S. As an alternative example, what if she had said, “Ed, I just wish Mr. Larson would let me speak to you in Times Roman, instead of this boring Helvetica.”
P.P.S. @ Grawlix – Here’s the Bloom County guide for those “motion” indicators:
Thanks to Kilby, Grawlix, et al, for linking or alluding to the studies of graphics indicators in comix. Of course, in case there’s anyone here for whom it doesn’t ring a bell, Grawlix is a perfect pseudo to engage in that sort of dialogue, as a term from Mort Walker’s 1980 Lexicon.
@ Mitch – I remember being frustrated at not being able to find that “Lexikon” the first time it was mentioned here at CIDU. This time I gave up on Amazon and looked it up at Wikipedia.
The funny thing about the “Later” and the Green Acres credits mentioned earlier is the characters are reading text that would appear backwards to them, which isn’t always easy to do quickly.
P.S. Armed with the correct title (“The Lexicon of Comicana“), it was perfectly easy to find the book, both at Amazon.com and at Amazon.de – but that doesn’t make it purchasable. Prices (for used copies) ranged from $200 to $430. Gadzooks!
In previous conversation it has come up:
https://cidu.info/2022/06/19/sunday-funnies-lols-june-19th-2022/comment-page-1/#comment-111768
The cover image made me hope that “goodreads” might also offer some of the content, but alas, no; it was fundamentally equivalent to the information offered by Wikipedia, plus a link to Amazon that I didn’t bother trying out. I can’t see paying $2 to $4 per page for a 96-page paperback.
How exactly does one break an anvil?
You get Siegfried to slice it in half with the freshly-reforged sword Nothung.
Similar sign joke in Sally Forth today:
https://v7.comicskingdom.net/comics/sally-forth/2022-08-29/?widgetId=570
I was thinking this anvil is on its way to getting broken — but then, maybe not. One way or another it might get a soft landing.
I was hoping the blog I posted would be of more help, but it appears incomplete as of yet.
40 plus years ago we started our handcrafted business when we lived in a garden apartment building (the 2 story, looks sort of looks like huge house setup) and did not want any trouble from using same as our business address we opened a USPS box in the nearest post office. (Oddly this PO was not the one for our apartment or for our house which is even closer to the PO where we opened the box.)
While living in this house (lived in apartment 9 years before moving here) we had trouble with mail deliveries which reached the point where we were getting mail for people on streets we never heard of (and Robert has lived in the general community since he was 7 yeah,we lived near my in-laws) as well having our mail go astray. So we switched our mailing address for almost everything to the box.
Since I worked from home on days I did not go to clients (meaning most days I was home) I would go daily to the PO to check the box for mail and post outgoing mail and we continued to do this after Robert retired/quit his job. When the pandemic hit we went through the second week of March 2020 and then went on the last 2 Sundays in same – around 11 pm to avoid being in the PO with people.
We then tried to get our mail forwarded to our house – problem was business box – could only forward mail addressed to the business. The staff at the PO went above and beyond helping us – mailing us large envelopes with the mail since it could not be forwarded and eventually helping us change the box to a personal one in my name so the mail could be forwarded.
Our not wanting to go to into the PO led to our leaving our outgoing mail in our house mail box (with the flag up) and the (most appreciated) carrier picking it up for us – I left it on Sunday nights for the week. Then we hit a snag – tax returns to go to client would not stay in the clip in our box and would fall into the part of the box not accessible without a key, so we found a local collection box to use. (I had not used a collection box since 3 unrelated & in different parts of NYC/LI where collection boxes were set on fire with the mail in them – which is why we had not been using same.)
Now we go out on either on Sunday nights to post off the outgoing mail or on Mondays if we are going out for lunch in one or another of 3 different boxes we have found to use (and now they no longer open as they did – just a slit to push the mail through so much safer). I do know there used to be a collection box 2 blocks from our house as when we first we moved in I posted mail there a few times, but it is apparently gone and we need to drive to get a box despite living on a 4 lane main road.
So there are fewer boxes than there were, but still a good number so them – so far (and depending on which box we use we are posting our mail in one of 3 different communities/post office’s areas.
Grawlix said: I was hoping the blog I posted would be of more help, but it appears incomplete as of yet.
Sorry, I’m missing the continuity here. Help with what? In any case, we don’t seem to have anything in “Pending” (moderation) nor Spam that is waiting approval.
Sorry for the confusion. I just meant to join in with the wishes for seeing the complete contents of The Lexicon Of Comicana. The comic book glossary blog I had linked to borrows heavily from that book, but so far that blog appears to have posted only random bits from it.
That’s all I meant to say.
@ Mitch – The blog-link that Grawlix posted is now buried in the middle of the comments:
https://comicbookglossary.wordpress.com/hites/
Ah thanks for clearing that up. I did in fact see the post and follow the link to read the Hites entry, which does give an answer to the question posed in the comic. But I didn’t make the connection from Grawlix’s later post.