Superbowl Sunday
Hmm, a little more acidic than we usually expect from Bliss.
An eminently reasonable request! (And Andertoons seems to have taken on a larger format.)
Yeah, one of the jokes is just too old — but the comeback is new to me, and pretty good!
A measured response to conflict won’t make the movies.
Here’s hoping all our CIDU readers are in good health, or will be soon.
A few from Guindon
Comics I Don't Understand 
Thank you, PBS, for saying exactly how I feel. Well, Packers fans believe THEY own the franchise, but that’s BS.
Having lived in PackerLand for 60+ years, I can verify that fans are truly like this. Hubby’s Vette just happens to be green, with added gold accoutrements, so he added some ‘Packers’ stuff and continually received awards for ‘People’s Choice’ . . . even tho he knows (and cares) NUTTIN’ about football.
So, which one would you say is the guy just going to the store? I had two candidates, the guy in the dark trousers and jacket at middle distance, and the guy with darker skin wearing shorts a little to the left of the first one.
@ Dana K – It must be the guy in the dark jacket (second from the right), he’s the only one who is not wearing oversized walking sneakers.
P.S. @ ThataBaby – I remember a recent comic dealing with a shortage of bananas, in which the punchline said something about getting a different fruit to stand in for a telephone (with one character holding a pineapple to his ear). Did anyone else see it and remember where it was?
Agree with @Kilby — plus he has his hands in his pockets.
re: Bliss and the tree. Anyone else find it ironic a guy writing cartoons almost undoubtedly from a dwelling that displaced some natural objects (trees, open field, whatever) is commenting on people doing that for their interests?
Yes – it is very much like the folks who’ve moved into our subdivision, entitled Tarpon WOODS, and promptly cut down their trees ’cause ‘they’re messy’ or ‘they might blow down in a hurricane’.
Raffi is one of the children’s entertainers who didn’t get busted, so
Re: Laughter the Best Medicine
So he’s in Heaven because he has a gentle soul, because he enjoys a good joke, or he’s in Heaven because he didn’t go to a real doctor? It’s probably the latter, but, it’s your eternal soul we’re talking about, and everybody dies, so really, what’s the difference if you do so a little sooner than later? That’s not going to be what’s on St. Peter’s mind when you show up at the Pearly Gates… So, logically, it should be the former.
I agree with Goat. Personally, I don’t get sport. Not at all. I find it boring and repetitive. There’s only a limited number of things that can happen. I don’t understand why it’s interesting to watch the same thing happen over and over again. I especially don’t understand picking one team to follow, liking this team, and hating that team.
I don’t object to other people enjoying it. If you like sport, good for you. I personally don’t get it.
That apart, isn’t Rat usually the one belittling other people’s entertainments?
Nothing wrong with watching a bunch of talented people working together at a high level. 🙂
That said, Goat’s point is hilarious, but I think he’s being a bit pedantic. In a funny bit of semi-synchronicity, a local sports anchor just ended his reporting on this afternoon’s basketball game, noting the victory of “Your Boston Celtics”. So, despite what Goat says, MY team won that game. 🙂
It doesn’t seem all that long ago that TV personalities often avoided uttering the name “Superbowl” on air, due to copyright, and instead substituted phrases such as “The big game”. Stephen Colbert ran with this when on his Colbert Report show he crafted hilarious segments built around the mis-spelled phrase “Superb Owl”. I thought those segments were funnier than later ones where he could use the actual name.
Regarding the comic with the walkers, my guess would be the guy going to the store is the one more darkly drawn (toward the right), in contrast to those around him.
Lastly, I’d like to point out the tree in the Bliss comic is nicely drawn for a comic.
Some people like to be scornful of fans of sports teams, yet wouldn’t say the same about musical concerts. Yet the similarities are there. It’s an entertainment production, often performed by the most talented people. People are fans of particular groups of performers even when there’s no real connection, although with sports there is sometimes a geographic one.
I have to say, those are some unhappy-looking angels. Anywhere from morose to pissed-off.
Grawlix says
Lastly, I’d like to point out the tree in the Bliss comic is nicely drawn for a comic.Let’s see how people take the color version.
Speaking of commenting with embeds of Biss, here’s one I wanted to comment into our thread about the “non-counterfeiters”, the artists who draw money and then spend it like cash, or variations on that plan. But I couldn’t find the thread.
@ Mitch – The Barney & Clyde strip referring to J.S.G. Boggs was in the post called Firsts.
P.S. Here’s the search path I used:
1) Wikipedia “Counterfeit artwork currency”, scroll down a long way to find “Boggs”
2) Google “Boggs site:cidu.info”
3) Bingo!
Thanks!
@ Pete – “…sport … boring and repetitive … only a limited number of things that can happen … over and over again.”
Heinlein’s protagonist Jubal Harshaw used a very similar argument in “Stranger…“, except that he was talking about sex instead of sports.
Apparently Vic Lee thinks Heaven is full of giant bubbles?
You’ve got a banana in your ear.
I said, you’ve got a BANANA in your EAR.
YOU! HAVE! A! BANANA!!!! IN! YOUR! EAR!!!
I’m sorry, Mark in Boston, I can’t hear you. I have a banana in my ear.
@ Mitch – Getting back to Bliss, the color version of that tree is truly amazing, but after comparing the two versions, I think he used just one green and one brown shade, and the “amazing” part is the interaction with the superb pencil work on the monochrome original.
My billionaire’s team beat your billionaire’s team!
I thought of the musical performance aspect as well. However, to parallel the comic, uttering a statement such as “MY band really played well.” would be rather odd, unless you happen to be one of the musicians involved. 🙂
One fun thing not often discussed regarding sports is that athletes are seldom actually from the cities they represent.
Lastly regarding the Bliss tree, I’m not sure I have a strong reaction to the color version. Having seen the monochrome version first, I am reminded of my grumpiness toward the trend of digitally colorizing old B&W photos I see posted on Facebook. 🙂 In the end, both versions are very good.
I am guessing that I am missing something obvious about what a tree has to do with a place to make bowls. Cutting it down to have a place to build a place for mom to work? Mom going to use the tree wood to turn bowls or since ceramic is mentioned to bake the bowls in the kiln with the wood? Is mom making actual bowls to hold food or “bowls” as in “I’ll have a cobb salad in a bowl” “bowl of soup” etc.
Mom has decided to pursue some trendy hobby, producing bowls that no one wants or needs. In order to pursue this hobby properly, she’s going t need a new, dedicated space to perform it in. So, in the yard where there is currently a magnificent old tree, they will instead put up a shed (a pottery barn, if you will), and the tree is in the way.
First World Problems.
Meryl, I figured it as being like your first option — they will be cutting down the tree to clear some land for building some kind of addition, which will be used as the mom’s studio. Which the dad clearly was against but (had to) agree to.
Edited to add: Just as larK has explained too.
The Bliss really hit me in the solar plexus; I’ve mentioned (ad nauseam) that we moved to Tarpon WOODS, and once the need for a permit to remove trees was taken out of the law of the state/county, neighbors started cutting down trees, because “they are messy” or “they might fall on the house in a hurricane”. We will soon become Tarpon PRAIRIE, and I. just. don’t. get. it.
We’ve also lost the visitation of birds and bats because of those trees having been felled. Squirrel visits, OTOH, have greatly increased, due to my PLANTING more trees and keeping the ones we have in good health. No good deed goes unpunished.
In WI, Hubby wanted to cut down a tree in the yard and I physically stood in front of it and dared him. He backed down and that tree was still there when we moved almost 30 years later. So no, he didn’t HAVE TO acquiesce to this and I think he was pretty spineless to do so.
My team, my band …
Well, I have my web sites that I visit every day. CIDU is one of them. One of “my” web sites. But I don’t own it. It existed before I found it and it hardly knows I exist. Funny how we talk as if we took possession of things.
TV personality John Oliver had some interesting comments while appearing last night on Stephen Colbert’s show that tie in with the PBS comic. He took issue with the celebration of the teams’ owners in a team victory. Billionaires and their billions.
(Skip to the 3:25 mark, and note, that this being John Oliver, there are some bleeped words)
larK/mitch 4 – Thank you.
I wish I could remember who once said (in regard to baseball) that fans tuned in to watch pitchers pitch, and to watch hitters hit, and fielders field, and baserunners run, but that no fan had ever tuned in to watch owners own.