This striking but very puzzling Six Chix cartoon by the Friday chick, Maritsa Patrinos, was suggested by CIDU readers travelgirl, bobanero, and Jack Applin; and understanding remains elusive also for CIDU editors and for Comics Kingdom commenters.
(P.S., thanks for letting us know about https://www.usatoday.com/comics as another outlet for viewing King Features / Comics Kingdom cartoons.)
P.S.
Little did we suspect, when writing a title for this post based on the Six Chix comic, that we would almost immediately run across an actual Midas-themed cartoon!
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Comics I Don't Understand 
While the meaning of the Midas one is clear, I think the first one is a modern imagining of a teenage (between 1300 and 1900 years old) dragon and his hoard. Note the piles of gold under the bed so he can “sleep” on it.
I’m stumped. The mouse cursor tells me someone is playing a video game and this is a screen in the game. But the significance of that is lost on me. A teenage demon or dragon surrounded with treasure, technology, and symbols of adolescence doesn’t seem parodic – it could be a legit encounter in many games.
But then, I remind myself, this is Six Chix, where the artists brag about drinking too much while working.
Yes, that’s gotta be it. I was trying to imagine what kind of teenage demon he is and why he’s stealing gold. Clearly he’s a (Western) Dragon.
Sorry about misleading you with this, Andrew. The (hand-shaped) mouse cursor that you noticed was not an actual part of the image as published, but an accident — under the new way Comics Kingdom works we haven’t found the key to downloading their image files, and have resorted to screenshotting. I didn’t notice until you pointed it out, but that hand is from my mouse, having failed to move it out of the picture while taking the screen capture. :-(
@chipchristian, do you think that dragon, in his human(oid) form, will grow into a giant? And where’s his brother? :-)
Oh, it isn’t marked as a CIDU? Well, it took me a good minute, so I’ll go ahead and “understand” the Argyle Sweater cartoon for anyone else who may remain puzzled. We can see the status of one of his resolutions, since the exercise treadmill has not even been touched — anything he touches has turned to gold.
Hand-shaped mouse cursor?
@ PHV (7) – It’s hovering over the winged/horned creature’s left thigh, just above his knee. I’m very glad that Mitch explained @4 where it came from, because there was another one in the “Today I Learned” post that puzzled me a lot (back then I thought it was the artist’s error).
Yes, pixiehoney, it’s near the center of the image, hovering near the demon/dragon’s left thigh.
I’m deeply disappointed in all of you. Such negative comments! And not one person mentioned how nicely the colorist didn’t use green or purple. Come on! Credit where credit is due.
Chak, since this post has two cartoons both showing objects made of (or turned into) gold, can we contrast the color choices for that metal? I guess I like the hard yellow that the “Six Chix” drawing uses; but the muted beigey-orange of the “Argyle Sweater” might be one of those other gold tones that are popular, like “rose gold” maybe.
The “dragon” idea came immediately to my mind.
There’s an interesting situation with Mary Worth. The strip running today, titled with this date, seems to be the wrong one. It’s marked 3/30/24 on the strip itself.
A different one is shown on the Comics Curmudgeon, and some commenters mention that the USA Today site mentioned at the top of this thread has a different one, which is the same as the one Josh has. I suspect something went haywire with their look-ahead feature for premium members or something on the regular CK site.
I didn’t invent “quar project”, I heard it somewhere. A brief search turns up several uses of it.
Chak (10): Is there something wrong with green or purple?
Brian (13): What? Something went wrong with a CK site? I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
I have noticed that CK hasn’t enforced the small number of free strips for non-subscribers or non-premium or whatever since the new format rolled out. So I haven’t needed to use the alternate sources.
The Tuesday strip is up now for Mary Worth, and it’s the correct one. They have not fixed the erroneous Monday strip, so it goes 3/24 -> 3/30 -> 3/26.
Having a mistake on an updated platform isn’t that surprising. However, they must have heard about it by now, so not fixing it is.
I had to faintly chuckle regarding the discussion relating to the errant cursor, as I had recently seen a photo discussion on Facebook of a large billboard graphic that contained a small-text line reading “Lorem Ipsum” somewhere in the middle of the graphic. Presumably the graphic artist had overlooked that bit of text as it might have been too small to see on the computer screen prior to printing.
Now, with the first comic, did the “teenager” get his riches through an after-school job?
The Argyle Sweater one sent me looking for info regarding what would happen if Midas had touched a person. (In the comic his wife is flesh-colored as he is). The search was pretty much fruitless, though I did find another Argyle panel featuring King Midas, though this one pairs him up with Medusa.
https://www.quora.com/What-would-it-feel-like-if-Midas-touched-someone
My way of keeping up with Mary Worth is at the Comics Curmudgeon. :-)
Grawlix, in the original myth Midas touches his daughter and turns her to gold, which (at least apparently) kills her. Also all his food turns to gold, so he’s starving – some versions say the gift/curse was reversed, some that he died of starvation.
@ Mitch (19) – I’m rather amused, because it was precisely the continual parade of Mary Worth, Judge Parker, and Spiderman soap operas that convinced me to quit reading the Curmudgeon.
Boise Ed (15) Green gold basically means your boyfriend is really, really cheap.
Mitch4 (11) I do like rose gold, but the first strip looks way more Midas-y
I wouldn’t know, Chak. I’ve never had a boyfriend. 😜
It had been a while since I’d heard/read the Midas myth. I thought there might have been a person involved but I couldn’t recall. Interestingly my Google search wouldn’t point out the plot. I was looking for a discussion of the grimmer implications of the story, but all I got were mostly references to “The Midas Touch” in general. It’s funny how the Midas Touch is considered a good thing, as if there’s no side effect.
The whole reason I was googling was because Midas’ wife is depicted in flesh color in the comic, as if there’s no contact between the couple.
Okay – it’s late, we can’t find a picture frame in the house for a small 95th birthday gift I embroidered for my mom and will give her on Saturday, so my mind may be more off than usual but –
If not for the (goat/devil?) head he could be King Midas’s son trying to sell some of the gold items his dad has created online?
As a teddy bear (and friends of theirs – such as Panda bears) collector I think it cute that whoever this is has his teddy bear in his bed.
Meryl, thanks for pointing out that teddy bear, and the observation that this being, though apparently an adolescent, retains some childish aspects. Another cute detail is the cat sitting in the small treasure chest. Hey, notice the purse on the floor? Could it be that this is a teen girl being?
The hair, shorts, and posture are all more indicative of “male”. Given that he’s a “dragon”, the purse could be classified as “loot”.
I think Kilby kind of has it. This is a woman deeply into an online fantasy game to the point that it is real to her. Her character is some demon spawn and the room is full of the imaginary “loot” she has collected.
Based on the dragon poster on the wall, I go with that theory. Note that it is not gold.