From a reader who appreciates Macanudo. Usually.
Is it just about “This is how he came up with that title” or is there still a joke remaining to be found?
P.S. There doesn’t seem to be anything language-dependent to check, so this time we are not including the Spanish edition.
Comics I Don't Understand 
He’s smiling because the computer is the only one that answers him when he greets it? As in OK Siri, OK Google?
I see it hasn’t been fully spelled out here, so just in case anybody needs it : Thom Yorke is a key member (perhaps leader?) of the band Radiohead. They had a major popular and critical hit in the early 90s with an album titled “OK Computer”.
Thanks very much, Dana. Today’s post suggests the Macanudo strip could be telling a story of how he came up with that album title — but missed how nonsensical that would be for someone not familiar with the background.
@ Philip (1) – Siri and Alexa† are only about a decade old, so they could not have been involved with anything “…in the late 90s“; there’s also nothing on the computer screen that indicates a response. It would appear that the fiendish grin in the last panel simply means “OK I’ve found my title“.
P.S. Except for the third panel, the other four drawings make him look about 13 years old, but Thom Yorke would have been pushing 30 at the time this strip is set.
P.P.S. † – Normally German law does not permit changing a given name (except for extreme circumstances), but recently a court allowed such an exception for girl named “Alexa”, who had been enduring a fair amount of hardship at school from classmates taunting her with “commands”.
Pretty sure Siri and Alexa weren’t around in the late 90’s.
P.P.P.S. @ Mitch (3) – I agree, the reference is just too obscure. The album was released 26 years ago (in 1997), and I had never heard of it (nor of Thom Yorke) before I saw this comic.
@ Kilby (6) – Thom Yorke is pretty much a music icon these days and is still performing both solo and with his new band Smile who just released an album in May of last year, as well as working with other musicians and contributing work to popular movies and TV shows such as Peaky Blinders. Although the album in question is quite old, it’s an important part of his catalogue, and I think anyone with even a vague knowledge of him would have got this reference.
In fact, now that I think of it, one of my students, a 16 year old, told me last year that he was her favourite artist.
Thanks Dana. I’d have never gotten that. But since you told us that, here’s some info about the album OK computer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEJwwn69ZF0
@ Stan – I admit that I am perhaps more insulated from the “modern” music scene than the average American consumer (by an ocean, six time zones, and nearly 30 years), but nevertheless, I think it’s a faily challenging memory task for a syndicated comic strip. If Macanudo were at GoComics, then we would have been able to get a rough idea of how many readers understood it, and how many were as clueless as me, but neither Arcamax nor Comics Kingdom has a viable system for readers’ comments.
You can connect Radiohead with Richard Wagner, via a certain Paul Lansky as middle term …
I think “Ok computer” was the attention call for at least one much older computer speech/dictation system, but maybe not…
I was unfamiliar with Thom Yorke, so it was a CIDU for me.
If Macanudo were at GoComics, then we would have been able to get a rough idea of how many readers understood it, and how many were as clueless as me, but neither Arcamax nor Comics Kingdom has a viable system for readers’ comments.
Comics Kingdom does have a comment system, but only available from the primary site, not the alternate used by newspaper web sites† (note that you can read the comments even if the strip doesn’t display):
https://comicskingdom.com/Macanudo/2023-07-05
This strip only has four comments, and all seemed to understand, possibly because the first one did.
† The alternate Sally Forth strip had comments on 7/9 only, different than the main site. It’s unclear what that means:
https://v7.comicskingdom.net/comics/sally-forth/2023-07-09/?widgetId=570
I like these “how it came about” stories. Here’s another one:
When the explorer Balboa, after a long and perilous journey, came to a vast and hitherto unknown ocean, his assistant Pedro told him that as the first European to discover the ocean he now had to give it a name. Balboa said, “I name it The Ocean At The End Of Our Long And Perilous Journey.”
Pedro said, “Sir, can’t you give it a more specific name?”
Balboa said, “Very well, I name it The Specific Ocean.”
And another. Many people wonder how New York University got its name. Here is the real story.
As the immensely wealthy philanthropist Samuel Goldenberg was nearing the end of his life, he called all of his family together — children, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews — and informed them that he was going to use a few million dollars of his wealth to establish a new university in New York City.
“And the name of the school will be Samuel Goldenberg University,” said Samuel. “It is going to be named after me.”
One of his bolder nephews said, “An’ why you?”
Samuel replied, “Hmmm … you know, I think I like that name even better!”
@ Brian in StL (13) – Thanks for the hint, but even when using the “standard” CK website for Macanudo, I see exactly the same thing as with the “v7” link: there’s a headline that says “Join the conversation“, followed by a large area of empty white space†. Strangely enough, I do see the Sally Forth comments, but that’s the first time I’ve ever seen even one comment under any strip at Comics Kingdom.
P.S. @ MiB (14) – There’s a German canard that claims that the first explorer to reach Canada must have been from Bavaria: after he stepped out onto the shore, he looked around, but didn’t see anyone, so he exclaimed “Kaina da!“, and left. (Standard German would be “keiner da“, meaning “nobody here”.)
P.P.S. @ Brian † – After testing, it turns out to be a compatibility issue with my MacOS & iOS versions. I can see the comments if I use our most recent iPad, but only on that device, not with any of the others in the house. Why the Sally Forth comments appear with the older versions is just another CK mystery. Luckily, almost all of the CK strips I follow are available at Arcamax, so I rarely need to fuss with either of the CK URLs.
Even following your link I don’t see any comment section, but I don’t feel my life is in any way made worse by that omission. It’s probably improved instead.
The way I experience Comics Kingdom, the comments service takes its time appearing below the cartoon, after you are viewing it separate. They used to use Disqus or another external add-in, but I think that is no longer the case.
@Kilby: The REAL way that Canada got its name was this:
They took a whole bunch of letters written on slips of paper, one letter each, put them all into a hockey mask and shook them up.
The announcer picked out letters, one at a time. He held each one up and called it out.
The first letter was C. He held it up and called out “C, eh?”
Then the next. “N, eh?”
And the third. “D, eh?”
@Mark in Boston: I suppose I’m expected to comment, eh? Well, I won’t.