There’s nothing very mysterious about this Wallace the Brave strip (it does help to be familiar with Spud’s somewhat odd personality):
However, that strip reminded of a “Win, Lose, Drew” comic from mid-December:
I seriously doubt that Drew Litton was referring to a specific player, but most of his comics do refer to current sports events. Were there an unusual number of overly “picky” offsides penalties this year? Or was there some other football incident to which this comic is referring?
It’s fairly clear what is happening in each of the visible portions of this Perry Bible Fellowship comic, but I really don’t understand the sequence of events between the second and third panels:
I’m pretty sure that the man in the second panel is the same as the one in the background of the third panel, but if was he the one who called 911, how did he manage to escape the “choice”? And what is the EMT on the sidewalk trying to communicate with her hands?
This Ink Pen rerun from February 2010 just happened to appear on New Year’s Day 2024. I can recognize the cartoon sources for all of the names mentioned by Hamhock, but I can identify only one of Ralston’s examples (the last one: “Goolagong“). I assume that most of the rest would yield relatively quickly to a concerted Internet search, but that’s not what I want to know. Is this a “geezer” and/or “millennial” issue? How many of those twelve names in the first three panels are obvious to the rest of you?
Reviving an old tradition, I would like to invite all CIDU readers to list any comics that they have “recently” added and/or dropped from their reading lists (this question hasn’t been asked in quite some time, so everyone is free to interpret what “recently” should mean). Bill normally scheduled this question for Dec. 31st, but since that would conflict with the Sunday Funnies, I decided to move it up to Friday, so that everyone can think about it over the holiday weekend.
For comparison, here are links to the available discussions that appeared in Dec. 2018 and Dec. 2019, along with an intermediate call for comic suggestions that Bill posted in March 2019. (Any similar posts for 2017 and earlier were destroyed by “Comicgeddon”; I spent an embarrassing amount of time looking for a 2020 list, before I realized why Bill hadn’t created such a post at the end of that year.)
P.S. I assume that almost all “new” entries will be for reading comics online, but in the unlikely event that anyone has started reading a new comic in newsprint (a.k.a. “fishwrap”) form, please let us know!
Even though Hanukkah is already over, Robin still has a number of Zak’s cards left over, and she wanted me to remind CIDU readers that she is not “re-using” the recipient list(s) from past years. So, if you would like a (belated) card for this year, you need to supply your (postal) address in a new e-mail, sent to “robinbickel (at) gmail.com“. Please put “CIDU” in the subject line.
Anyone who would like to may also send Robin a holiday card.
Mail them to 43 Peace Rd, Randolph, NJ 07869.
CIDU Bill always claimed that he named the “Arlo Award” concept after Arlo Guthrie, and there is still a statement to that effect in the CIDU FAQ. Anyone who has followed CIDU for a while will have realized that this was just a polite cover story, as the strip above clearly shows.
I sincerely hope that this strip was meant as a satiric skewering of all the Taylor Swift hoopla, and not as an even semi-serious attempt to get on the bandwagon with everyone else.
P.S. When I first read the strip, I thought Liniers was in the market for the latest and greatest (overpriced) mobile phone, but when I zoomed in on the fourth panel, I discovered that the last word was “plane”. (I really like hand lettering, but now I wonder who does it for the translated version of the strip.)
Last week Robin sent some news, following up with “…feel free to share my post with the group! I am so happy that CIDU continues to be a place where people can actually converse in a civilized manner. Sadly, that seems to be less and less the norm every day.“, and adding that she “…will be sure to share news with the group during the [coming] year.”
I’ve added some relevant links and footnotes to Robin’s message:
Hope this little note finds everyone well at CIDU land! The boys and I are doing well and as it’s already the end of November. (Where does the time go?)
I’m gearing up for holiday cards.† If anyone would like a card designed by the ever talented Zak, please drop me a line (even if you’ve gotten a card in years past).†
Aaron and Mary Cate hosted a bike-a-thon to raise money for the rare disease Charcot Marie Tooth (which Mary Cate has).‡ It was a huge success, and they’ll be doing it again next September. I’ll send out an e-mail next summer in case people would like to donate or participate. It was a lot of fun.
Zachary is still working hard making the business section of the NY Times all pretty. You can check out his Instagram at authenticzakbickel if you’d like to see his work.
Eight of us (including Aaron and Zak) went to Vienna for a week. Not only did we eat fabulous food, see amazing architecture and really great museums, we also saw the government apartment building where my father-in-law lived when he was a young child.
Happy Holidays everyone!
P.S. (†) – From last year’s holiday card reminder: send the e-mail to “robinbickel (at) gmail.com“, and put CIDU in the subject line. If you’d like, you can send Robin a card to 43 Peace Rd, Randolph, NJ 07869.
P.P.S. (‡) – The link goes to Bill’s most recent (2020) Walkathon post, in which Aaron gave some basic information about CMT and their fundraising. Please note that the link listed there for Mary Cate’s fundraising page is no longer in service.
There’s no question about whether these two comics are (nearly) synchronous, the puzzle is why both of them showed up one day apart in November. There are no Jewish holidays anywhere in the vicinity.
Although they were invented in the 1940s, household microwave ovens did not become widespread until the mid 1970s, but I know for certain that I’ve been using the verb “nuke” (as a synonym for “cook in a microwave“) for at least four decades, because I vividly remember the puzzlement it caused for a friend’s son in the early 1980s. I find it somewhat surprising that the term could become so commonly accepted in less than a decade, but thinking back, this may be the very first time that I have ever seen the word “nuke” used in this sense in printed (albeit comic) form.
Comics I Don't Understand 