travelgirl sends this in: “I have no clue what’s going on here, though my gut is telling me it’s easy and i should :) “
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Reaching back into my childhood lo these many years ago, I seem to remember something about grasshoppers spitting tobacco, (this may be a Southern thing.) A quick Google tells me my memory isn’t failing just yet. So all these grasshoppers have contracted oral cancer from their habit.
Yeah, some grasshoppers really like to eat tobacco and (unrelatedly) grasshoppers spit brown juice. This is an old and largely forgotten trope – there just aren’t that many grasshoppers any more and chewing tobacco is unfashionable – but Collins is a septuagenarian.
Aren’t they mantises?
Nah. Mantises have scrawny rear legs, while grasshoppers have huge ones. The only major mistake is that he reversed their knees so they could sit.
so, as someone who has never lived near the south, much less the tobacco south, nor spent much time there beyond the occasional wedding or “just driving through”, there’s no way this comic makes sense to me… or for the perhaps hundreds of millions (if not billions) of readers in the same boat…
much as i love this guy’s sense of humour, creating a gag where the vast majority of humanity has no chance of knowing the premise annoys…
A site milestone passed earlier today: 90,000 comments!
Travelgirl, the Looks Good on Paper substack has just over 7,000 subscribers. It’s also on GoComics, where it probably gets most of its readership. It’s not carried in newspapers. He self-publishes the occasional collection.
I’d be shocked if more than like 50,000 people saw this.
And I think there’s nothing wrong with targeting a niche audience. Some of my favorite comics, like xkcd, can be pretty esoteric, but are usually worth the effort. It’s one reason I like this site: Perhaps 90% of CIDUs are mediocre-at-best or inside jokes but there are a few that are very, very clever and just require a little specialized knowledge. (This one falls under “mediocre-at-best,” admittedly.)
There’s no shortage of comics that very consciously target a broad audience. Most of them are boring.
I grew up in Florida and it took me a little while to remember the part about ‘spitting tobacco juice’. I was terrified of those monsters when I was little, and they still freak me out a bit. And you’re probably right about the comic’s target audience – I won’t be able to identify myself as a septuagenarian much longer.
For a look at the real-life version, ask google about the ‘Eastern Lubber Grasshopper’. Here’s a representative article: https://www.news-press.com/story/life/outdoors/2016/05/14/eastern-lubber-grasshopper-toxin-wild-file-stetson/84127598/
Is it possibly a reference to this old cartoon?
Well, maybe they are meant to be grasshoppers, but they look more like mantises. Grasshoppers have all six legs on the ground. Mantises stand upright, and have bent forelimbs that function more like arms than legs. But applying accurate biology to anthropomorphic insects in a comic strip is a futile task anyway.
I was pretty sure they were flies. They seem to have only two wings. Flies and beetles have two wings (one pair), but most winged insects have two pairs for a total of four. Certainly the Orthopterans do.
Mantids have raptorial forearms not present in these creatures. Then again, grasshopper first legs do not have that weird s-bend shape.
A site milestone passed earlier today: 90,000 commen
Does that go back to include Bill’s time?
A site milestone passed earlier today: 90,000 commen
Does that go back to include Bill’s time?
Yes. (But just on this WP site, not any of the predecessors.)
I am sure someone will say that they are not bugs – but it is easier to just say that they are BUGS than try to figure out which kind they are suppose to be. (Yeah, I am a lazy person.)
Comics I Don't Understand 
Reaching back into my childhood lo these many years ago, I seem to remember something about grasshoppers spitting tobacco, (this may be a Southern thing.) A quick Google tells me my memory isn’t failing just yet. So all these grasshoppers have contracted oral cancer from their habit.
Yeah, some grasshoppers really like to eat tobacco and (unrelatedly) grasshoppers spit brown juice. This is an old and largely forgotten trope – there just aren’t that many grasshoppers any more and chewing tobacco is unfashionable – but Collins is a septuagenarian.
Aren’t they mantises?
Nah. Mantises have scrawny rear legs, while grasshoppers have huge ones. The only major mistake is that he reversed their knees so they could sit.
so, as someone who has never lived near the south, much less the tobacco south, nor spent much time there beyond the occasional wedding or “just driving through”, there’s no way this comic makes sense to me… or for the perhaps hundreds of millions (if not billions) of readers in the same boat…
much as i love this guy’s sense of humour, creating a gag where the vast majority of humanity has no chance of knowing the premise annoys…
A site milestone passed earlier today: 90,000 comments!
Travelgirl, the Looks Good on Paper substack has just over 7,000 subscribers. It’s also on GoComics, where it probably gets most of its readership. It’s not carried in newspapers. He self-publishes the occasional collection.
I’d be shocked if more than like 50,000 people saw this.
And I think there’s nothing wrong with targeting a niche audience. Some of my favorite comics, like xkcd, can be pretty esoteric, but are usually worth the effort. It’s one reason I like this site: Perhaps 90% of CIDUs are mediocre-at-best or inside jokes but there are a few that are very, very clever and just require a little specialized knowledge. (This one falls under “mediocre-at-best,” admittedly.)
There’s no shortage of comics that very consciously target a broad audience. Most of them are boring.
I grew up in Florida and it took me a little while to remember the part about ‘spitting tobacco juice’. I was terrified of those monsters when I was little, and they still freak me out a bit. And you’re probably right about the comic’s target audience – I won’t be able to identify myself as a septuagenarian much longer.
For a look at the real-life version, ask google about the ‘Eastern Lubber Grasshopper’. Here’s a representative article: https://www.news-press.com/story/life/outdoors/2016/05/14/eastern-lubber-grasshopper-toxin-wild-file-stetson/84127598/
Is it possibly a reference to this old cartoon?
Well, maybe they are meant to be grasshoppers, but they look more like mantises. Grasshoppers have all six legs on the ground. Mantises stand upright, and have bent forelimbs that function more like arms than legs. But applying accurate biology to anthropomorphic insects in a comic strip is a futile task anyway.
I was pretty sure they were flies. They seem to have only two wings. Flies and beetles have two wings (one pair), but most winged insects have two pairs for a total of four. Certainly the Orthopterans do.
Mantids have raptorial forearms not present in these creatures. Then again, grasshopper first legs do not have that weird s-bend shape.
A site milestone passed earlier today: 90,000 commen
Does that go back to include Bill’s time?
A site milestone passed earlier today: 90,000 commen
Does that go back to include Bill’s time?
Yes. (But just on this WP site, not any of the predecessors.)
I am sure someone will say that they are not bugs – but it is easier to just say that they are BUGS than try to figure out which kind they are suppose to be. (Yeah, I am a lazy person.)