All show, No go, Neglected to train. How do I look? Selfie culture, ad infinitum. A common affliction seen at both fund raiser road races and triathlons. Makes spectating fun, in a perverted sort of way. ( Noted as an OG physiologist who ‘s been there, done that). Funnnnny !
When I first opened this post, I only saw the top half of the comic. Before I scrolled down, I was expecting that the missing items would turn out to be his(?†) “feet”. Either way, the joke does indeed require suspension of biological beliefs, but anatomy‡ was never this artist’s strong subject.
P.S. † – In the question below the comic, I assume that the singular plural “they” refers to the puzzled individual of indeterminate gender. There just aren’t any conclusive details, but that generally indicates “male”.
P.P.S. ‡ – Zaehringer is the only person I know who draws athletes (even professional ones) whose circumference appears to be more than double their height.
P.P.P.S. Translated literally from German, his name would mean “tough wrestler“.
I hadn’t realized that the author/artist had changed 4 years ago. I didn’t know who Kilby was talking about and was surprised when a search led me back to “In The Bleachers”.
Yes, news to me as well.
From Wikipedia :
Publication history
The single-panel cartoon appears in about 200 newspapers worldwide, including the Washington Post. Moore got the idea for In the Bleachers while working as sports editor at The Maui News. The comic was launched in September 1985, shortly after Moore was hired as an editor at the Los Angeles Times.
In a July 2018 interview, Moore said that because of his condition of essential tremor, he could no longer create the comic strip. The current writer is Ben Zaehringer.
@ Kevin – The new name was completely unfamiliar to me, too; I couldn’t read his signature at all, and simply took the name that Mitch had placed in the tags. However, the actual changeover didn’t really occur four years ago: Steve Moore did say he had to stop producing the strip in a July 2018 interview, but the “BenZ” signature has been appearing on daily panels since Oct. 24th, 2016. Nevertheless, the syndicate did not recognize his name in the Sunday bylines until March 24th, 2019.
Given that Ben Zaehringer had been carefully imitating Steve Moore’s drawing style for (at least) two and a half years before his name went on the strip, I think it was unfair of me to blame him for the “blob” shaped characters: the credit (meaning blame) for that should be given to Mr. Moore.
P.S. @ Mitch – Another remarkable detail from that Wikipedia article was that the (mediocre) 2006 movie “Open Season [was] based on ‘In the Bleachers’ hunting-related cartoons“.
Part of the joke is that Forgetful Person has a tiny chest, because of the missing lungs. The waist looks proportionately larger because of the bizarrely sunken chest.
Another forgetful guy
The pegs are all identical, so the pieces are interchangeable:
P.S. There’s an old German saying: “By the nose of a man you can recognize his John Thomas”. The obvious solution would be to …
The runner would probably leave his head at home if it wasn’t attached.
Kilby: I’ve heard it as “if a man has very big feet, what does he probably also have that’s very big?” And the answer of course is “shoes.”
@ Shrug – The original saying is “An der Nase des Mannes erkennt man seinen ‘Johannes’“; a study released in Nov. 2001 claimed to have found evidence to support the hypothesis. However, as “Toy Story” repeatedly showed, he’s got lots of spare parts, so he must have had something that would server as a substitute.
To Kilby.So his original identity was Pissaco before Witness Protection ?
@ TFF – Or perhaps the other way around. However, when I first read your comment yesterday, I suddenly had an unrelated, but extremely nasty, way beyond Arlo thought: “Did he really ‘leave’ it at home? Or is it possible that the ‘Mrs.’ may have ‘borrowed’ it for some other purpose?” …
Kilby: And then there’s the newly-wed husband who tells his wife “But I’m afraid we can’t ‘do it,’ tonight, dear –you see, it’s Lent.” And she sobs “That’s ridiculously generous — but to whom, and for how long?”
Comics I Don't Understand 
Bizarre but I think that’s the joke.
All show, No go, Neglected to train. How do I look? Selfie culture, ad infinitum. A common affliction seen at both fund raiser road races and triathlons. Makes spectating fun, in a perverted sort of way. ( Noted as an OG physiologist who ‘s been there, done that). Funnnnny !
When I first opened this post, I only saw the top half of the comic. Before I scrolled down, I was expecting that the missing items would turn out to be his(?†) “feet”. Either way, the joke does indeed require suspension of biological beliefs, but anatomy‡ was never this artist’s strong subject.
P.S. † – In the question below the comic, I assume that the singular plural “they” refers to the puzzled individual of indeterminate gender. There just aren’t any conclusive details, but that generally indicates “male”.
P.P.S. ‡ – Zaehringer is the only person I know who draws athletes (even professional ones) whose circumference appears to be more than double their height.
P.P.P.S. Translated literally from German, his name would mean “tough wrestler“.
I hadn’t realized that the author/artist had changed 4 years ago. I didn’t know who Kilby was talking about and was surprised when a search led me back to “In The Bleachers”.
Yes, news to me as well.
From Wikipedia :
Publication history
The single-panel cartoon appears in about 200 newspapers worldwide, including the Washington Post. Moore got the idea for In the Bleachers while working as sports editor at The Maui News. The comic was launched in September 1985, shortly after Moore was hired as an editor at the Los Angeles Times.
In a July 2018 interview, Moore said that because of his condition of essential tremor, he could no longer create the comic strip. The current writer is Ben Zaehringer.
@ Kevin – The new name was completely unfamiliar to me, too; I couldn’t read his signature at all, and simply took the name that Mitch had placed in the tags. However, the actual changeover didn’t really occur four years ago: Steve Moore did say he had to stop producing the strip in a July 2018 interview, but the “BenZ” signature has been appearing on daily panels since Oct. 24th, 2016. Nevertheless, the syndicate did not recognize his name in the Sunday bylines until March 24th, 2019.
Given that Ben Zaehringer had been carefully imitating Steve Moore’s drawing style for (at least) two and a half years before his name went on the strip, I think it was unfair of me to blame him for the “blob” shaped characters: the credit (meaning blame) for that should be given to Mr. Moore.
P.S. @ Mitch – Another remarkable detail from that Wikipedia article was that the (mediocre) 2006 movie “Open Season [was] based on ‘In the Bleachers’ hunting-related cartoons“.
Part of the joke is that Forgetful Person has a tiny chest, because of the missing lungs. The waist looks proportionately larger because of the bizarrely sunken chest.
Another forgetful guy
The pegs are all identical, so the pieces are interchangeable:
P.S. There’s an old German saying: “By the nose of a man you can recognize his John Thomas”. The obvious solution would be to …
The runner would probably leave his head at home if it wasn’t attached.
Kilby: I’ve heard it as “if a man has very big feet, what does he probably also have that’s very big?” And the answer of course is “shoes.”
@ Shrug – The original saying is “An der Nase des Mannes erkennt man seinen ‘Johannes’“; a study released in Nov. 2001 claimed to have found evidence to support the hypothesis. However, as “Toy Story” repeatedly showed, he’s got lots of spare parts, so he must have had something that would server as a substitute.
To Kilby.So his original identity was Pissaco before Witness Protection ?
@ TFF – Or perhaps the other way around. However, when I first read your comment yesterday, I suddenly had an unrelated, but extremely nasty, way beyond Arlo thought: “Did he really ‘leave’ it at home? Or is it possible that the ‘Mrs.’ may have ‘borrowed’ it for some other purpose?” …
Kilby: And then there’s the newly-wed husband who tells his wife “But I’m afraid we can’t ‘do it,’ tonight, dear –you see, it’s Lent.” And she sobs “That’s ridiculously generous — but to whom, and for how long?”