Usual John sends this in. “Curtis is supposed to be eleven, and Michelle presumably is about the same age. Catwoman. Wonder Woman, and Tinker Bell all seem like plausible costume choices for a eleven-year-old girl, even if we might think of them as having more adult physiques. Since Curtis usually is wild to get Michelle to go out with him, I don’t see why he would be turning down this opportunity.”
Jack Applin sends this in. “Bob states that all the sides and angles are equal, which is true for a (regular) octagon. Yes, and … ? Is it a gag about the word “side”, that there’s no need to get to the other side, because all sides are equal?“
…
Unless someone can think of a reason why it might be meaningful, let’s assume that “⦣BDC” is simply a typo for “⦣BCD“.
Here are a couple of octagons that are not regular. After someone explains what the joke is, we can consider whether the joke would apply to these octagons.
What’s the line for? Where is Horace at in panel 3, since the gray floor has disappeared? Is he picking up random detritus in panel 3, or something of significance?
Janice wonders, “Are we keeping up the tradition of guessing Caulfield’s costume?”
Why not? Put your guesses in the comments. I’ll try to remember to update this post with the next clue each day; if not, feel free to add that in the comments.
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday. And the answer is:
The day after Halloween, the explanation. But we don’t find out what Caulfield’s actual costume was, at least not yet.
I had originally set Mark H.’s suggestion to appear on Valentine’s Day, but then Kilby used this comic in his post earlier today. All of this exposure proves that the text below is still relevant, so I’m posting it as a bonus for today.
Bill Bickel set up the Arlo Award tag to indicate comics that seem to have snuck in sexual references past a newspaper comic censor. Of course, the state of the newspaper business is such that comic censors, or copy editors in general, seem to be in short supply. Web comics are, of course, inedible (I mean ineligible) for an Arlo Award.
The award is a nod to Jimmy Johnson’s Arlo & Janis comic, which still has innuendos with some subtlety. But a special Arlo Lifetime Achievement Award has to go to Brooke McEldowney’s 9 Chickweed Lane.
Here’s one sent in by Mark H., who notes “Given that they’ve never been intimate, it’s not clear how she knows how big his macadamias are – except that, being a few years older, she probably baby-sat him in younger days.”
The aging of the twins in this strip has been mysterious; is she older?
But, yes, McEldowney established 3 days earlier that they haven’t had, well, you know what.
So, with the tiny power invested in me as one of the editors of Comics I Don’t Understand, I hereby give 9 Chickweed Lane a Lifetime Arlo Achievement Award.
Any acceptance speech may be NSFW.
A late bonus addition from today’s Six Chix. Her impression of him, or his impression of her?
We’ve got a decent queue for postings at the moment, so I’m adding it to today’s.
Boise Ed sent this one in. Apparently the drone operator has stolen some appliance from his neighbor, probably a coffee machine.
.
But why? What’s the story line here? The drone operator already has coffee. It seems more cruel than funny, especially on a Monday morning.
Usual John, Unca $crooge, and Dirk the Daring all sent this in, Dirk noting: “Normally this strip is just about sex, repetitive, but easy to understand. But this one I don’t get, what are they laughing at? Am I missing something obvious?”
It’s 9 Chickweed Lane, so it’s almost certainly about sex, but I don’t get it, either. Here’s the previous two days in this story line:
The following day (August 31, 2024) switched characters entirely, and does not help.
Panel 1 says “Dik Browne”, but both he and son Chris are deceased. Who’s doing the strip now? And with Nancy running with guest artists, is that person one of the guest artists, or someone who wishes they were one of the guest artists? (Note Nancy and Fritzi in panel 4)
I did find this on Comics Beat, in Chris’s obituary: “Following the retirement and death of its creator, Dik’s sons Chris and Chance Browne – plus illustrator and cartoonist Gary Hallgren who has drawn the series since 2015 – took over the reins. Chris’ thirty-plus year tenure on the character (his brother Chance works mainly on the continuation of their father’s other series Hi and Lois but assisted with edits) – from 1989 to 2023 – makes him the strip’s longest serving cartoonist (his father retired in 1988, accumulating 16 years of material).”
On Facebook, a commenter dug deep into his comic archive to find this similar gag from Ernie Bushmiller:
