Reader Mike Pollock offers a “juxtaposition via T.A.R.D.I.S.” Perusing this Saturday Evening Post comics selection page, Mike thought the way the weather forecast lingo was handled in the two Stan Hunt panels here (from 1950 and 1955) was reflected in the very recent Zits below them.
And with our editorial eyes opened to this idea, we were quick to note this Life on Earth:
As always — but it needs saying explicitly again now and then — we like to think of this as a reader-participation site, and not just for your invaluable (or anyhow amusing) comments, but for suggestions of comics to run and discuss.
Please share your specific suggestions of panels or strips, in CIDU, LOL, and OY categories, either by direct email to
(that’s “CIDU dot Submissions” at gmail dot com) or by using the handy-dandy Suggest A CIDU form page!
Could the formulas on the blackboard be from a genuine quantum mechanical derivation? Maybe even Dr. H’s Uncertainty Principle? And the caption almost fits one of its usual ordinary-language formulations — that’s probably the actual point of the gag.
Pete sent this in. It’s also a bit of a CIDU, since wouldn’t knights in armor have metal plate on the bottom of their feet?
And here’s one sent in by Usual John, a bit more of a comic scene-rendering than a gag LOL:
In particular, local rules can cause problems. In the card game Hearts, does the jack of diamonds mean anything special? Can you dump on the first trick? In Monopoly, do you complain that the game takes too long, but put $500 on Free Parking, and allow houses to be turned in for full value? In poker, is the worst low hand A-2-3-4-6 or 2-3-4-5-7? Complain about your favorite example of local rules in the comments.
From the Ask-Me-Anything episode:
Not truly a pun, but still word-centered humor.
Somehow I passed by this panel several times before understanding the simple parallelism of the two signs.
As always — but it needs saying explicitly again now and then — we like to think of this as a reader-participation site, and not just for your invaluable (or anyhow amusing) comments, but for suggestions of comics to run and discuss.
Please share your specific suggestions of panels or strips, in CIDU, LOL, and OY categories, either by direct email to
(that’s “CIDU dot Submissions” at gmail dot com) or by using the handy-dandy Suggest A CIDU form page!
I thought the difficulty regarding the USB Type-A plugs was traditionally the alignment when making the connection. And that disconnecting is, if anything, a bit too easy — as the post title notes, it doesn’t take much.
Side questions: Is the Spanish text somewhat antique, as the English is? And, in the middle panel do we see more of the sword that doesn’t quite match the reveal of the last panel?
As always — but it needs saying explicitly again now and then — we like to think of this as a reader-participation site, and not just for your invaluable (or anyhow amusing) comments, but for suggestions of comics to run and discuss.
Please share your specific suggestions of panels or strips, in CIDU, LOL, and OY categories, either by direct email to
(that’s “CIDU dot Submissions” at gmail dot com) or by using the handy-dandy Suggest A CIDU form page!
A couple of comics for which we could not answer “What is the joke here?” but OTOH could not in good conscience call a clear CIDU and devote a full daily standalone to.
This might be a Semi-CIDU, as there is the question of whether this is how the cowboy bathes (and gets the horse to manage the timing and coins), or it’s at the horse’s volition as it wants its gear and rider to be clean.
Hmmm, do they or do they not know there is a big Internet program/project called “Second Life” ? [Which I’m sure was around in 2009.]
P.S. Current SecondLife site.
As always — but it needs saying explicitly again now and then — we like to think of this as a reader-participation site, and not just for your invaluable (or anyhow amusing) comments, but for suggestions of comics to run and discuss.
Please share your specific suggestions of panels or strips, in CIDU, LOL, and OY categories, either by direct email to
(that’s “CIDU dot Submissions” at gmail dot com) or by using the handy-dandy Suggest A CIDU form page!
The estimable Allan Holtz, comic strip historian and proprietor of The Stripper’s Guide, has invited CIDU readers to join in trying to make sense of these example panels from the vintage series Papa Knows. He provides an historical deep-dive and some interpretive overview in last Friday’s blog column, in the Obscurity of the Day series, but leaves these four as examples where it seems no genuine attempt at a gag can be found. — What we like to call Comics I Don’t Understand!
(As Allan explains, “Obscurity of the Day is just posts about rare and overlooked newspaper comics; generally speaking if they’re hard to understand it’s because of the gulf between our time and theirs. Papa Knows, on the other hand, seems to be downright weird no matter when you might have read it!”)
Comics I Don't Understand 