Trying to Eke Out a Joke Here

Jack Applin sent this in, with multiple comments;

• A cat is lecturing to people.
• The cat is using a laser pointer, but isn’t chasing the dot.
• “EKEKEKEK”? Not “EEK”.
• The mice have motion vectors; the leftmost is spinning.
• The bottom mouse is dead (x for eye).
• I thought the mice were in/above water, but that is text,
as seen in the bullet points to the right.
• Despite all this data, I have no idea what’s going on.

We are encouraging catty remarks in the comments.

Hagar meets some hooligans

The only joke I can fish out of this might be that we are supposed to know that the kids’ parents are sitting right there in the bar. But that might depend on us recognizing them as regular characters and knowing their families … a bit more than I can muster.

Or are the kids a crossover or tribute from another strip?? Wasn’t there a classic with “Hooligan” in the title? Oh, never mind.

Impossible!

Let’s revisit a topic we’ve seen in different lights at different times: How the English and Spanish versions of Baldo may differ in how a joke works.

Here the joke comes off okay in English, as based in written language (or anyhow spelling). The specifics won’t work in Spanish, so they settle for a less striking point.

P.S. The previous day’s comic clarifies that “work for me” probably means more like “as a substitute” than like “as an employee”.