Sunday Funnies – LOLs, August 25th, 2024


Unexpectedly, this was something of a minor CIDU, with comments disagreeing over which partner is actually the neatnik. (Also just a hint of Arlo speculation based on how the drawn legs bend at the knees.)


Nice to find the occasional clear-and-direct LOL from PMP!



For once we can let this stand as a LOL on its own, and not indulge a compulsion to track down the specific advice column it probably accompanied originally.


Mark H. notes “This Arlo is a Janis”.

Or maybe she’s just moving the drapes to give him a better view of the moon. Or of …



Thanks to both Darren and Phred who sent this one in, as mostly LOL but with enough of a factual background question to make it almost a CIDU. Why is it a matter for sticklers?

P.S. It turns out this comic was discussed at Comic Strip of the Day; but we ran across that after this post was already prepared.


Sunday Funnies – LOLs, August 18th, 2024


This is close to a CIDU, as there doesn’t seem to be a single best / obvious answer to the question.


Tim Harrod sends this in: “Whether you laugh or not, Jim Davis is historically reliable at coming up with a punchline. But here, the joke is apparently that the eggs are really spicy… and a lot of people ordered them. It could have been a scheme to sell a lot of milk, but then Irma should have more of a sly grin in the last panel.”

The gag seems straightforward, but Tim’s right: she should have a sly, knowing grin on her face.

On Monday, will we see Irma’s lasagna?



Probably more of an Awww than strictly an LOL.


Sunday Funnies – LOLs, August 11th, 2024


Keeping hydrated??





Here’s a LOL/semi-CIDU courtesy of Dale Eltoft – and thanks for the intro to Ryan Mason / At Random Comics.


I had trouble with the premises of the original Topper TV series because I didn’t understand the distinction between when the ghosts would “dematerialize” and when they were simply invisible.

[Bonus CIDU] Well technically, …

Perfectly good comics. But you have the nagging feeling the joke or pun would work just a tiny bit better if this-or-that could be edited a trifle.
(Thus CIDUs by a polite extension — “I don’t understand why this little matter couldn’t be fixed up…”)

Here, for instance, the traditional form uses “get a haircut / hair cut” and always works smoothly; unlike in this strip, where the dialogue in panel 2 is quite unnatural. “Hey Harv, didja get a hair cut?” , “Nah, I got them all cut! Heh heh!”


A good chuckle from Arlo and Janis, sent in by Jack Applin who has a point about “breaking serve”.

As Jack explains, As I understand it, to “break serve” means to score a point in tennis when your opponent serves. However, Janis was serving (“Did you cover the charcoal fire?”), and Arlo neglected to do that, so Janis scored the point on her own serve, right? Even if we consider the entire strip one long volley, Janis still asked the initial question, so she’s serving.

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, August 04th, 2024


Back in May, Mark H. wrote that “This [Shoe] caught me completely off guard“.
Perhaps it will do so again in August?




Wait a minute! Doesn’t the “you had me at” trope use something the other party said *early* in their dialogue turn?
Here’s the same comic in single-panel format. These get published under the name “Reply All Lite” and have become re-arrangements (sometimes radical) of the same day’s horizontal-format and usually multi-panel strip. The single-panel “Lite” series used to be somewhat more separate, with a less verbatim relationship to the strip version. The new approach strikes me as sensible. Note that it pretty much coincides with her move to distribution via Counterpoint.


Nope, I’m not sure I would have recognized the title characters if they weren’t named.

And it’s remarkable that they were able to hire domestic services from Amazon even way back then!


Saturday Morning OYs – August 03rd, 2024



I had been familiar with the Çedille Records label out of Chicago for quite some time before noticing that one reason for the name is that it would be pronounced much like “CD”.





Sunday Funnies – LOLs, July 28th, 2024

Just a touch of CIDU perhaps…




CIDU note: So what was their plan? Or is it merely a non-coordination mixup. The usual TV story would be that they planned to go to town and do something wild.