Month / December 2024

by phsiii

It’s…magic??

From Irv:

He comments,

The second and third frames in the second row are what IDU. If the Wizard is cheating, shouldn’t the beam and hangers be visible there as well as in the last frame? Otherwise, maybe he is cheating and conjures the beam and hangers to “prove” he wasn’t using magic in the previous frames even though he was? All told, IDU what’s going on here.

For that matter, if there’s some magic making the beam and hangers invisible that he somehow forgets? turns off? for the last frame, how did he appear to lift it off the ground??

by Kilby

Bonus: Macanudo Misfires, Too

Macanudo has been extremely dependable since I started following it several years ago: whimsical, sometimes poignant, but often surreal (and occasionally CIDU). Like Rubes, this makes it all the more noticeable when a strip just doesn’t work, like this one:

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The slapstick “flattening” might have worked if the strip had ended at the third panel (shifting “Are you OK?” into the second dialog balloon), but including the partner’s desperation and anguish in the fourth panel transforms the remnant of humor into a simple tragedy, leaving nothing to laugh at or feel good about. Thankfully, the hiatus was just for one day.

by Kilby

Logical Impossibilities

I have been following Leigh Rubin’s “Rubes” comics for at least a decade, or possibly two. I have to admit that it only rarely provokes an audible laugh, but it is virtually always worth a good smile. It is precisely this dependability that makes it all the more noticeable when a “Rubes” comic just doesn’t work, such as this one:

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Simply telescoping two concepts into one term doesn’t always produce a meaningful (nor humorous) result. The whole point of the “Schrödinger’s Cat” thought experiment is “observability”. In this drawing we can see both the cat and the damage, so there cannot be any quantum (or “cat-tum”) superposition.

I had even more trouble with this second comic, which I would like to call “Stooge Trek“:

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Nobody would ever claim that anything that The Three Stooges ever did was “logical”, but Spock’s reaction (and dialog) seems completely out of place (even more illogical than the picture he is watching). For me, this comic just doesn’t work; YMMV.

P.S. Given the similarity of the hair styles of Moe and Spock, perhaps it would have been funnier to have a second frame, in which Spock pokes Kirk in the eyes.

P.P.S. I initially thought that the “dual nose poke” tableau seemed gratuitously excessive, but I was clearly wrong, as proved by this picture:

by Kilby

Coffeeholic Cartoonists, Unite!

Coffee is consumed compulsively by many people all over the world, but cartoonists (who are notorious for keeping odd hours) seem to be especially susceptible to the allure of the drink’s stimulating properties. Given the excessive amount of publicity that many syndicated cartoonists produce for free, it’s remarkable that none of them has managed to land an advertising contract.

Garfield drank his first cup of coffee two weeks before he discovered lasagna.

Similarly, Horace (or perhaps Samson?) has a serious addiction:

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P.S. Stahler’s “Moderately Confused” panel was the original inspiration for this entire post; Shannon Wheeler’s Too Much Coffee Man is not just the title, but also the main character of his entire feature.

Here’s a B.C. strip that Brian in StL submitted and was posted two years ago. Brian commented back then that: “It’s not entirely clear to me what’s going on. In a way, the first panels look like the preliminary sketches a cartoonist does. So is the coffee affecting him? Or is Jane now able to ‘focus’ since she‘s had coffee?“

Opinions differ on optimum methods of preparation:

Scientists have been researching the heath effects of coffee for decades; this editorial cartoon by Pat Oliphant was published in 1981:

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P.S. I was amused by the similarity in viscosity.

Here’s another Dark Side of the Horse (it won’t be the last):

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P.S. Spoiler alert: Foreshadowing!

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, December 8, 2024

Radio has certain requirements. Sports announcing, too. Dead air is the enemy. Some of the most painful examples to me are long bicycle races (4+ hours) that end in a sprint stage. So until the last kilometer, not much is going on if there’s no breakaway. But 4 hours must be filled with announcing, regardless. Particularly painful if there’s only one announcer, not two.

A quick look around my dwelling shows 6 books that I’m partway through but intend to finish, a couple of which I haven’t make any progress on in at least a year. (Not counting ones I don’t intend to finish, or haven’t started.) Should I invoke a statute of limitations on these 6?

The New Yorker has posted a page of the magazine’s cartoons which were most liked on Instagram.

This one pairs nicely with Parisi’s one above.

by Kilby

Dog Tuba

Boise Ed submitted this Bizarro as a CIDU, commenting: “The left man can barely hear the tuba, so the right man must be playing it very softly (which is hard to do). ‘Dog tuba’ reads like it’s the dog’s tuba, but he obviously doesn’t like the sound of it, even at that very soft volume. Beyond that, I’m stumped here.“

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P.S. I think it’s clear that this is a play on “dog whistle“, but for CIDU purposes, let’s assume that Wayno was merely referring to the physical device, and not to the political context. Even with that hint, it’s not entirely clear why or even whether this is funny.