Category / Oopsies

by Kilby

Logical Impossibilities

I have been following Leigh Rubin’s “Rubes” comics for at least a decade, or possibly two. I have to admit that it only rarely provokes an audible laugh, but it is virtually always worth a good smile. It is precisely this dependability that makes it all the more noticeable when a “Rubes” comic just doesn’t work, such as this one:

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Simply telescoping two concepts into one term doesn’t always produce a meaningful (nor humorous) result. The whole point of the “Schrödinger’s Cat” thought experiment is “observability”. In this drawing we can see both the cat and the damage, so there cannot be any quantum (or “cat-tum”) superposition.

I had even more trouble with this second comic, which I would like to call “Stooge Trek“:

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Nobody would ever claim that anything that The Three Stooges ever did was “logical”, but Spock’s reaction (and dialog) seems completely out of place (even more illogical than the picture he is watching). For me, this comic just doesn’t work; YMMV.

P.S. Given the similarity of the hair styles of Moe and Spock, perhaps it would have been funnier to have a second frame, in which Spock pokes Kirk in the eyes.

P.P.S. I initially thought that the “dual nose poke” tableau seemed gratuitously excessive, but I was clearly wrong, as proved by this picture:

by Kilby

Warning: This is an NSFW Experiment

Back in mid-June, Chak submitted one of Zach Weinersmith’s SMBC comics as a partial CIDU, commenting: “I could only find eight broken Commandments, can anybody get all ten? And if so, which of the three lists of Commandments in the Bible did they use?“

(Ordinarily the comic would appear right here, but not this time.)

Here’s why: Besides the theological irreverence present in Zach’s caption, the main problem (and part of the reason for the delay in posting Chak’s submission) is that while there is nothing visually offensive (nor “Arlo”) in the artwork, the dialog is simply much too crude to post openly at CIDU (some might even call it blasphemous). I’m not willing to risk one of those fancy “swipe” frames to hide it, because that mechanism is browser-dependent.

Since we do not have access to Bill’s “Arlo Page” to use as an asylum for this kind of material, the experiment I propose is to provide non-embedded (text) links, which may be used to open the corresponding images in a separate browser tab or window. Everyone should remember that the images behind these links should not, repeat not be opened by anyone who is easily offended (in this case, by F-bombs and other gratuitous crudeness).

Here is the link to the SMBC comic (NSFW).
Reminder: you have been warned!

This second link is for the bonus “votey” panel (also NSFW).
Again: you have been warned!

Anyone who wishes to answer Chak’s questions or participate in the discussion may do so in the comments below, but please remember, even though Zach used crude language in his comic, there are still standards of decorum here at CIDU, so please keep everything civil. I wouldn’t expect that this conversation will qualify for a G-Rating, but it would be nice if we could keep it below PG-13.

P.S. If this discussion method works, we might consider using it with other (especially “Arlo”) comics that would otherwise not qualify to be posted at CIDU.

P.P.S. Those of you who may feel that this experiment was a bad idea, please say so. CIDU is a community; it cannot function properly without honest, open communication. (I’m referring here to the method of discussing NSFW material, and not the SMBC comic itself, which is sure to offend a certain percentage of readers.)

by Kilby

Popping a Pair of Puzzling Zits

The most recent appearance of Zits at CIDU was posted 4.5 years ago by Bill, so it seems like it’s time for a few more.

This first one was submitted two years ago by Dave in Boston, but probably got lost in the shuffle because the Arcamax link had expired(+), and Comics Kingdom (back then) had a very limited memory (something like two weeks for non-subscribers). Since Arcamax links do not indicate the date, it took a bit of detective work to find the comic that Dave had intended:

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Here’s what Dave wrote: “It seems the joke is supposed to be that the teenagers are so glued to their phones that they need to check the weather app to find out that they’re being rained on. But, it’s perfectly reasonable in that situation to check the forecast or the radar to see how long it’s going to last. And then there’s no joke. Or there’s something IDU.“

Coincidentally, Chemgal submitted this recent Zits strip as a CIDU, asking, “Just what is supposed to be in that contract?“

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P.S. I don’t have the slightest clue as to “What?“, but I have a pretty good idea as to “Why?“: Friends of ours here in Germany had photovoltaic panels installed under a “lease to own” agreement that will take 15 years for them to complete.

P.P.S. (+) The moral of the story is not to trust Arcamax links for submissions. Using Arcamax links for embedding images in comments is even worse, because the image will disappear later. If you have no other option, at least mention the publication date.

by Kilby

Working (it all) out

Irv submitted this Wizard of Id Sunday strip as a CIDU, commenting: “The second and third frames in the second row are what IDU. If the Wizard is cheating, shouldn’t the beam and hangers be visible there as well as in the last frame? Otherwise, maybe he is cheating and conjures the beam and hangers to ‘prove’ he wasn’t using magic in the previous frames even though he was? All told, IDU what’s going on here.“

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I agree with Irv: if there is no magic here, then the logistics of the Wizard’s cheating scheme simply do not work, for multiple reasons. The same problem in the second and third panels of the second row also applies to the first, and the hooks would also be visible in the third panel of the bottom row, since the barbell is drawn a little too low. Finally, the Wizard’s arms in the first panel of the bottom row appear to be impossibly long.

by Kilby

The “U” Word

Extending the “counting on cartoon fingers” topic from Tuesday, Mark H. also submitted this Baby Blues strip, commenting: “Isn’t Uranus the seventh planet, not the eighth?“

Mark is exactly right. The author must be missing a finger or two. Besides that, “Earth” and “Mars” are the only two planets in the whole Solar System that do not have at least one “U” in their names.

Kilby adds: I witnessed (and participated in) the most uproarious pandemonium I have ever experienced in a school classroom during a presentation about the seventh (and not the eighth) planet in junior high school. The student at the board was trying (but failing) to maintain his composure, and everyone in the room (except the teacher) was giggling at least a little bit at the sophomoric joke inherent in the repeated pronunciations of the name.

The fatal mistake occurred when the kid attempted a quick sketch of the planet’s (severely tilted) axis. His intent was to draw a circle with a horizontal line through it, much like a Greek “Theta” (ϴ), but his subconscious played a trick on him, and the resulting diagram had a vertical line, just like a Greek “Phi” (Φ), or (as we all immediately recognized) “two cheeks of the moon“. Everyone in the room blew up: all the students were laughing, and even the teacher’s unbridled fury could not restore order.

Even now, nearly five decades later, and although I have attempted to keep these paragraphs as dry and objective as possible, I cannot help but giggle at the memory of the scene, so I understand exactly the way Hammie feels in the strip above.

by Kilby

That’s not what the author meant!

I recently ran into not just one, but a pair of (independent) comics that I just happened to completely misinterpret when I first read them. Both readings were humorous, just, well, “different”.

At first glance I thought the woman was trying to trick innocent candidates into volunteering (only first-timers would be so silly as to actually raise a hand; anyone with jury experience would know that maintaining a low profile is the best strategy to escape selection). Then I re-examined the artwork and realized that the gag was just a simple pun. Ooops.

The author wasn’t making any unusual wordplay with “a star is born“, but I mistakenly identified a joke that was not there. The German term for “cataract” is “grauer Star“, and I forgot that it’s not called that in English, and was expecting the “googly eye” to go blind in the next day’s strip. Ooops again.

Feel free to chime in with similar experiences, if you like.

by EditorM

Gourmet comics

Thanks for this to Andréa:

She points out it could be both of the animals, or simply the cartoonist, who aren’t aware the dog *is* a “gourmand”, by the standard way that is distinguished from “gourmet”.

P.S. After we already had this post scheduled, the Comic Strip of the Day site included this cartoon, and had an extended discussion of “gourmet”, “gourmand”, and some related words.

by EditorM

The final collection of Oopsies, Quickies, We-can-improve-its, Semi-CIDUs, Mysteries, and flops? (14th Series)

Not quite complaining about the friend’s unprompted question — it could happen, though normally you’d expect a context something like “Why won’t you X? What are you afraid of?” The problem, the detail-complaint, is with the form of Pete’s reply-question, which carefully spells out a pronunciation which marks it out as belonging to no actual regional or demographic dialect or slang.

Oops! Got the underlying myth premise precisely backwards!

And here they got the underlying business terms precisely backward. As an excuse for something like a missed payment, someone may plead that their assets are not liquid.

Okay, one joke is that there would be a rap version of a mantra. Or that she has been rapping it, or improvising it, or humming it or something, enough to disturb her friend.

But the bothersome aspect of this is how it seems to buy into some magical thinking. The dark-haired friend is linking her (later) ability to get the good parking space to performing a successful meditation now, undisturbed by intrusive mantra rapping. (Or could it be Nichiren Shōshū chanting?)

This is a perfectly fine little pun! Oh, except that there is no basis shown or hinted for why the new top provides more relief from the heat.

by EditorM

Pardon my 1590 mile displacement

A CIDU (or Ooops!) from zbicyclist, who explains: The line from Folsom Prison Blues is “I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die”.  So what’s the significance of Kansas City (where everything is up to date, according to Rodgers and Hammerstein)?

Can you advance a principled reason for changing the city? And, more to the CIDU point, how does her “ready for marriage” second sentence relate to anything?

by EditorM

You thought we couldn’t do another collection of Oopsies, Quickies, We-can-improve-its, Semi-CIDUs, Mysteries, and flops? (12th Series)

Thanks to Dana K for this Today’s Szep. The main joke is easy enough: the mere unlikely existence of this rack and these categories of card message. But what is all that ancillary action supposed to be about? Do these two know each other? Or is the woman just a judgemental bystander? Is she saying something, or just standing there with her jaw dropping?

On the first hand, this seems to me an excellent job of working out a technical experiment in the art of cartooning. Color-coding the speech bubbles could represent an improvement on trying to aim the pointers with precision, or stretching them around, or finding a basis for making the comic multi-panel so the dialogue can be rearranged.

But OTOH, the content of the dialogue is miles away from being at all funny. And is not even folk-wise, in that pseudo-deep way Frazz is so fond of trying.

Here’s a FoxTrot sent in by Kilby for the Oopses list. He says there is a real-world chronology error in showing Alpha-bits cereal in a current cartoon scene. “Alphabits was taken off the market in 2006, and made only brief periodic re-appearances, before disappearing again a year ago (May 2021). [Wikipedia link] The reason I checked is that I was not able to find them the last time I visited Washington. It’s possibe that Bill Amend is writing his strips a whole year in advance, but I seriously doubt it.”

Kilby also presents a judgement dilemma. “When a cartoonist recycles an ancient joke (albeit with ‘improvements’), is it better (A) To admit the crime, or (B) Just pretend that nobody will notice how ancient the gag really is?”

(A)

(B)

A classic case of “Oops!” from Le Vieux Lapin. Oops, I forgot to draw a cloud that looks like a comma.