(in this case, CIDU stands for Coloring I Don’t Understand)
Kilby writes:
I have mentioned Macanudo’s gray scale problem at Arcamax several times:
It’s too early to be sure where this will go, but Liniers has started a story arc related to color loss:
So far, my favorite strip was on Tuesday, but Wednesday was good, too.
I am guarding my optimism, but nevertheless still hopeful that when their colors do return, the color will also return to the Sunday strips at Arcamax.
That first comic above in color, on ComicsKingdom:
Comics I Don't Understand 
My suggestion for the post’s title was “Bleached Macanudo”, but the one zbicyclist chose is good, too. Here’s Thursday’s strip:
… and Friday’s strip:
My imagination (I’m not sure how to word that) liked the black & white version more. The feeling reminded me of meditations where I let my brain make a movie (usually moving past trees or past an array of small mountains). Somehow, the color on the fixed comic drawing doesn’t allow me to have the feeling of movement.
I DO like the clarity of the colored version; it’s really beautiful.
@ Kevin A – There have been a few other Sunday strips in which the monochrome rendition was surprisingly effective (“Michelangelo’s Yo-Yo” being a good example):
… but in most cases, the lack of Liniers’ superb watercolors just washes out the image (sometimes almost to non-existence, such as with “Penguin Lemming“, which was not even the worst case):
Unfortunately, Arcamax does not provide a calendar selection option, and has a date range of only three weeks, so I cannot provide any more “extreme” cases (in either direction).
P.S. The King Features images will not embed in wordpress, so here are links to the color versions of the “Yo-Yo” and the “Lemming Penguin” strips.
I suppose I should not have been so surprised when Saturday’s strip took a hard right turn (toward a crowd-sourced solution):
As Watterson once wrote, “It is rarely worth the trouble to synchronize Sunday strips with dailies“, and today’s Macanudo is unfortunately no exception. Other than its appearance at Arcamax, it has absolutely no relationship to the current “colorless” arc in the daily strips:
For comparison, here’s the same strip at Comics Kingdom (the image cannot be embedded, so here’s a link to the graphic).
P.S. Better luck next week…
With “Heart of the City” Steenz has synchronized the Sundays.
@ Brian – I’m not saying that daily & Sunday strips cannot be synchronized, but there are several reasons why it is difficult. Watterson mentioned two major problems:
1) Some papers do not have a Sunday edition and/or license only the daily strips (or vice-versa). For this reason, the Sunday strip cannot contain any elements that are crucial to the story arc. Instead of having “throw-away” panels, the entire Sunday strip becomes a “throw-away joke” (in terms of the overall story arc).
2) Because of color processing and distribution logistics, Sunday strips have a much longer “lead time” than daily strips, so the author has to work farther in advance. As Watterson put it, he was “almost never that far ahead on the dailies”.
P.S. As for the “Bleached Macanudo” story arc in this post, today’s strip was a major disappointment:
I was relaying some news. I understand the problems. Frankly, anyone with Sundays only would be pretty confused by HotC. Steenz isn’t doing serial-strip style recaps or anything.
Alas, the story arc ended with a silly whimper rather than a bang, and nothing has been done about Arcamax’s monochromatic problem:
P.S. That Sunday Macanudo strip was a lot better in color, of course.