Author / zbicyclist

by zbicyclist

Beware the Ides of March!

Beware the Ides of March! We all know that phrase, but it seems odd that it has crept into the language, since we know few other facts about Roman history. The meaning of “Ides” is a bit confusing to us in the modern world, as these comics show.

Interestingly, the Ides of March were notable in Rome as a deadline for settling debts.

by zbicyclist

Anthropomorphic Mosquitoes

Dale sends in this one.

There’s a poor color choice — cartoon blood is always red!

There’s the fact that mosquitoes don’t overeat and burst. (“In simpler terms, when the ventral nerve cord is severed, a mosquito has no sense of being full. It will continue to consume blood until it quadruples its body weight, whereupon it explodes. So unless you or a friend have the capabilities of performing neurosurgery, you won’t be seeing a mosquito “explode” anytime soon.”)

Even if we allow latitude for cartoon science and mentally color the blood red, what’s the joke here? Is the name Corelli a clue?

by zbicyclist

It’s All Here in Black and White

(in this case, CIDU stands for Coloring I Don’t Understand)

Kilby writes:

I have mentioned Macanudo’s gray scale problem at Arcamax several times:

It’s too early to be sure where this will go, but Liniers has started a story arc related to color loss:

So far, my favorite strip was on Tuesday, but Wednesday was good, too.

I am guarding my optimism, but nevertheless still hopeful that when their colors do return, the color will also return to the Sunday strips at Arcamax.

That first comic above in color, on ComicsKingdom: