Hard as snails

A CIDU from Dirk the Daring.

The BOB MANKOFF PRESENTS: SHOW ME THE FUNNY (ANIMAL EDITION) feed on Comics Kingdom seems to stick with some kind of animal for a week or two, then move on to a series with another kind. After a good run of ostriches, they have moved on to snails. I’m hoping for a visual to go with “Look at that S-Car go!”.

I can’t believe it’s not a synchronicity!

From Andréa, who points out for the synchronicity inspectors that although the Knight Life is a rerun or classic, its appearance on GoComics was 2022/11/08, same as the Candorville. The Candorville is a pretty good LOL at the end, too, despite edging up kinda near to partisan politics.

(Post-posting edit: As noted in comments, the following was the intended Knight Life, which actually uses the phrase “I can’t believe”.)

And for some additional fun on the “Can’t believe it” topic, Andréa also sends a link for this scene from The Vicar of Dibley. Impressive memory and facility from Emma Chambers, playing Alice.

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, November 6, 2022

Kilby sends this in, wondering why it was run on September 11, 2022. There are some standard characters (Ahab, Diogenes, Napoleon), among others. I’ve earnestly tried to figure out the two characters in the upper right corner of the 2nd panel, but frankly I don’t get it.

Kilby also notes that November 6th is the 50th anniversary of Frank and Ernest. Their Wikipedia entry has some interesting notes. The strip is distributed in Spanish as Justo y Franco. The strip depends so heavily on wordplay that I wouldn’t think it would translate well.

But by hitting the random button at GoComics, I see many that are understandable in any language.


This Frank and Ernest is a CIDU to me. 8 isn’t straight.

For obsessives who feel you need to see the Carolyn Hax column this accompanied, here is a guest link. For the rest of you, the connection to the cartoon is just that the advice question involves parent/child conflict.


Don’t you want to hear a few more rrrrr’s in that?


Ludwig is such a patient little guy! This semi-LOL is in truth mostly an Awww for the ailurophile crowd. And the White Meat Chicken Florentine from Fancy Feast Medleys in the 3oz can with green label is a standby in the Mitch4 household.


Saturday Morning OYs – November 5th, 2022

Some of these are somewhat CIDU for me, actually. I’m just guessing “Frankenstein’s Castle” is a thing, and “Vampire Bass” draws a blank.


Since we seem to have a subcategory under Oy for “Literalizing an Idiom”, might as well provide it some examples!


When he dons it, is it part of his gay apparel?


Should this strip have appeared on a Throwback Thursday?


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Zany Zoo

It’s very confusing how to take these Throwback comics. There is indeed a substantial history of the actual Working Daze comic strip, with different artists, and how they changed the look and how the public reacted to it. So sometimes the Throwback will realistically review some part of that.

But other directions for the Throwback feature sometimes strike me as sheer fabulism. They trace it back to different writers as well as artists, different publishers or syndicators, also even different titles for predecessor strips. And with a straight face go back to very early 20th Century. .. And yet try to say “This was what Roy was like then” or “This guy became Jay at this point” with the oddest of non-resemblances.

So I was really sus, but think we can tentatively credit the story about Zany Zoo.

Dark Side Platter

I understand in general terms the idea of one or two “throwaway” panels for syndicated Sunday comics. This DSOH seems to have two separate ones. Then goes on to a main comic, which to me looks like two more disconnected jokes — first a typical short-form Horace meta joke (and pretty good!), then finally an extended narrative joke (complete CIDU!). So … what’s up with these?

Just to be clear:

A word play OY:

A one-step pun:

A typical-for-Horace signifier/reality meta joke:

And a “Huh? Wha?” narrative:

Would you cut it up differently? Or see it as more unified? Or have better explanations?