A find-the-hidden-names puzzle from Pearls Before Swine!
(Yes, displayed twice for some viewers.)
As we said for a previous puzzle comic from PBS, This is a CIDU in the sense that there is something to solve. Or nineteen somethings to solve! And they are sort of OYs, to boot.
P.S. Geographic solvers, please “meter” your answer counts, and leave something for others to contribute.
Comics I Don't Understand 
All right, there’s Georgia. “To start with”, as the post’s title points out.
20/20, even counting the one name for 2 countries once.
I don’t see the “repeat” people are claiming (here and at GoComics). [Spoiler warning — the GoComics comments have at least one entry that I’ve seen that just names them all straight off.]
I perused the cartoon and got all twenty, eventually. I’ve even been to eleven of them.
And to list one of the real answers, Turkey is very clearly in there. As a guess, and for extra fun, I suspect one of the African countries might be the most obscure.
I see there is a rule in place that both the country name and the alternative meaning words have to be spelt correctly, even if broken up by punctuation and word balloons. Kenya believe it? would not cut the mustard.
Some countries, obviously, are way more forced in than others. Peru is not in the cartoon, but it would have been easy to insert the way I did it. So, Mal, I assert, on the contrary, that Somalia would have been one of the very contrived ones if attempted – though with bonus points since there is a second country buried inside that one.
To continue from previous comments, the next one I see after Georgia would be Turkey,which appears without overlap, as naming the bird (or its meat), BTW, it is remarked that the country has changed its spelling to something slightly different, like Turkiye.
One name for two countries is presumably a reference to one (or possibly two) different African countries.
I did this with my mom last night using a pencil on real fishwrap (newsprint), but we only got to 18 (or 19 with the “fish in a barrel” addendum in the last panel). After searching for the missing country for two or three minutes, my (German) wife pointed out that I had forgotten to underline “Turkey” in the first panel. Ooops.
P.S. @ Downpuppy (2) – I’m sure that only “O’man” (in the third panel) is supposed to count, and that “wOman” in the fifth panel is just coincidental.
Central American country’s name crosses word balloon boundaries.
I don’t like the ones where the end word of the several he contrives to hide the country name in continues after the end of the country — seems to go against the spirit of the thing, since the pronunciation suffers badly in most cases. Carl Fink’s Central American country above doesn’t work for me, nor does the other country from the Americas in the same panel right before it — so much so that it was one of the few I didn’t even see the first read through; the island nation in the panel after also suffers from this — too forced!
I’m not sure what the admonition to “meter” our answers means, but I don’t think a total ban on writing out the country names, as they come up, in discussion or just in turn, is necessary.
So … still in the first panel (indeed, first balloon), after Georgia and Turkey (Turkiye), we have China.
BTW, for anyone puzzling over the editors’ excess of erudition, “Sakartvelo” is the local or native name for the country we call Georgia. Which is what the comic does start with.
Àlright, continuing in first panel / first balloon: Togo at the end of redbeard Gary’s dialogie, broken as two words “to go”. Then, second balloon, the lady in green has Hungary, broken as two words with a comma.
Yes, I just meant a case where Republic of the & Democratic Republic of the are 2 different countries.
Not sure if I linked this the last time we did punny geography, but it never hurts to do it again (ouch!):
(I have the original of this one hanging on my wall :-)
I found 19, but one was a guess I had to look up (Benin), and I’m guessing the other I missed is another country that didn’t exist by that name when I was in High School.
Country count, frame by frame:
1. 5
2. 1
3. 3
4. 4
5. 3
6. 2
7. (0)
8. 1
What did I miss?
Aha, the “duplication” rumor was just somebody maintaining that “woman” in panel 5 counts as a second occurrence of Oman (seen earlier at the start of panel 3). This is no doubt unintended.
@Wendy, it’s panel 3 that is throwing you off, it has 4 countries. Both the word balloons begin with a pair of words giving a country when run together — do you have both of those? ,
@Lark, that is really wonderful! And I don’t recall you posting it before. The style of wordplay there is a bit like the FUNEX routines.
Ya, I got those. Oh, now I see it, there are 2 right at the start of that one. I missed the second one.
I got 17 when I saw it in the newspaper – now I see the three I missed (one obscure, though I know the name, and two really obvious – sigh).
I found twenty, but have to admit I missed Can a Da(me) the first time through. Shame on me!
I found 19.
I suspect I’m missing one in the phrase ‘has amassed wealth’ but I can’t work it out.
@Pete, how many do you have in panel 5? There are 3. There isn’t one in “who’s amassed wealth” but there is in the related phrase at the head of the 2nd balloon.
Ah, I get it. I saw two of them.
I am not reading the comments -sped down the page – on first time through- in local paper – I found 13 countries – on second time through today, here, I found 11 – so I am losing them.
I will post when finally find all of them.
If you wouldn’t mind some help which doesn’t name more than a single country answer, check out Wendy’s comment, number 14, which gives the humber of names to be found in each panel. (She was short on one, I think panel 3). This might help you focus on where to look, without outright giving the answers.
@ Mitch – Just to avoid any undue confusion, Wendy’s comment is @14.
Thanks! I have retro-corrected that virtual-keyboard typo in place.
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