This Six Chix panel, from the Wednesdays chick, Susan C K, is dated this coming Wednesday, 6 March, but was available by mistake last Wednesday, 28 February, when Comics Kingdom released their revamped website, and among several other issues was noticed to be displaying comics planned for up to a week in the future.
Whut? I suppose there could be a problem with the mechanism so that some dampers cannot stay lifted, making the notes from those strings always staccato. But that’s a stretch, and there isn’t a normal sense in which some strings have staccato as a property.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Might be a pun on stuck/staccato?
That was my thought, but it’s pretty weak.
Definitely a pun on “stuck.” It is weak, yes, but it’s Six Chix, where esteemed comic artists go to die.
Also I just noticed, the piano tech is standing at the right hand end of the keyboard, I.e. where the strings are for the treble notes, not the bass. (Though to be fair, he couldn’t really stand and work at the left.)
I trained to be a concert pianist and I don’t get it. One thing, though: piano tuners don’t dress in jumpsuits like auto mechanics. One, they go into someone’s home; two, pianos don’t drip grease and oil on you the way cars do. So maybe it’s supposed to sound like something an auto mechanic might say. But what could that be? “Your timing is off by two degrees.”? “When was the last time you had a tune-up?” “Does the noise get louder when you play faster?” “Remember, unleaded music only.”? “Stop riding the soft pedal.”?
Are you a premium subscriber? Apparently one of the perks of that is “early access” giving the ability to see up to a week in advance or something.
That “piano mechanic” seems rather small in stature in comparison to the pianist.
What? No comments that there can’t possibly be 88 keys there? The spacing of the black and white keys isn’t right? No mention of how human noses can’t possibly look like that? The shadow is completely wrong for the shape of the piano? Does the image of the cover board (whatever it is called) make any sense at all? The curved part attaches to the flat part in a way that I’d never imagine is part of piano. Clearly, then, this isn’t a piano since it wasn’t drawn realistically and any arguments this doesn’t make sense for a piano are moot. It isn’t a piano at all and is some entirely different musical instrument. One you’ve never heard nor seen. Nor are those people. Not with those noses. I’ve seen people I’ve never seen any that look like that!
Tis a cartoon. Many liberties are taken.
Maybe it’s that “staccato” in Italian means “disconnected”.
@ GiP – Excellent solution!
Geez, @TedD, what’s with the vitriol? One might think you were reacting as though our CIDU crowd were being like the nastiest reader-comments that appear at the curmudgeon site. (I do enjoy the host though.)
Yeah, you do have a point, but you’re carrying the argument to the point of being a totalism. Do you think “it’s cartoon physics” is enough to excuse any and every flaw and to outlaw comments drawing attention to problems of execution? Especially problems of execution that do seem to contribute to difficulty getting a joke?
Brian, yes, I am a paying subscriber to CK. And indeed they are still advertising “early access” and one can look ahead in the archive files about a week.
The issue behind this post comes from the behavior of the site on the first two or three days after the revamp was released. At that time, the look-ahead was not optional: a subscriber viewing their favorites list has a choice of “newest first” or “oldest first”. The “oldest” begin with some placeholder notices dated 1900, followed by the oldest of any vintage or classics you may be subscribed to, in my case Krazy Kat from 1922. And the “newest” began with a week ahead of the current date, and did not get you to current cartoons without massive scrolling.
When commenters are presenting credentials so they can authoritatively declare the comic baseless it shows just how crazy these criticisms are. IT IS A COMIC. I don’t know how anyone making those comments can enjoy ANY comic. This is the type of crowd that would loudly complain in a theater explosions in space make no sound.
Any comic would be made confusing and unfunny if we analyzed them in the way this one was. In the Sunday “funnies” there are talking dogs, potatoes and pigeons, people without noses and not one mention of how it makes zero sense blood only shows up in a mirror if it isn’t covered by skin.
Just testing adding comment while WordPress.com has networking problems.
TedD: *shrug* it’s a continuum, and sometimes it passes someone’s personal threshold because it intrudes on their ability to grok the intent and/or makes them wonder if there’s significance to the weirdity of note. Danny Boy’s point seems trenchant.
This is the type of crowd that would loudly complain in a theater explosions in space make no sound.
Well, now that you mention it, I recently rewatched 2001: A Space Odyssey, and yes, it is remarkable how highly effective a movie can be by just trying to faithfully present things as they should be. The banal reverberations of things in space renders the whole expensive CGI scene to meaninglessness and cliche, kind of like the ricocheting bullet sound (“kapweeng!”) degrades a whole generation of war movies. I recently saw something about the stunts in various James Bond movies, and there was one car jump in a Roger Moore film that was painstakingly done practically where the car does a complete 360 over a river and lands on its wheels to continue driving — the craftsmanship of the stunt people was superb. But in the final picture they decided to add a slide whistle sound effect over the scene, rendering it totally ridiculous and trivial — a complete waste of all the effort that went into it.
So, just because you rightly point out that we complain, doesn’t make us wrong, and is hardly a good counter argument.
And parsec is not a velocity!
Ok, ultra-geeky, but googling “star wars parsecs” finds this:
“A parsec is a unit of distance, not time. Solo was not referring directly to his ship’s speed when he made this claim. Instead, he was referring to the shorter route he was able to travel by skirting the nearby Maw black hole cluster, thus making the run in under the standard distance.”
An interpretation that sorta makes sense! “I got from my house to downtown in only four miles [by driving through the woods]”
@ Phil (18) – That was just Lucas doubling down on the stupid script error he made in 1977. If you watch Alec Guinness roll his eyes when Harrison Ford delivers the line, it’s clear that he (and/or Obi Wan) was aware that it was an error (intentional or otherwise).
Mitch4 (4): It has been a while since I’ve seen a piano tuner work on a grand, but they do have a way to work on the bass strings. The top can come off, but I think they just reach the tuning pegs from the end of the piano.
MiB (5): I love your alternate lines for the piano mechanic.
phsiii (15): “Danny Boy’s point seems trenchant.” Yeah, I can dig it.
Kilby (19): Just so.
Perhaps it’s all my fault.
I forgot to leave a smiley at the end of my wisecrack.
:-P
It seems to me this blog/forum has always been the comic equivalent of the TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000, riffing on the medium.
On the other hand we do give comics compliments when due.
It is wrong to complain if you are seeking your entertainment in places that will annoy you.
“It is wrong to complain if you are seeking your entertainment in places that will annoy you.”
Well, I wouldn’t call you wrong exactly.