Category / CIDU

by EditorM

Minor Mysteries and Oopses

These are non-CIDUs or semi–CIDUs, where the joke or main point isn’t seriously in doubt, but some specifics of the writing or artwork seem somewhat off, or incomplete, or in need of explanation or correction. (Yet we don’t want to get into the territory of mockery or purely complaining.)

This first one is from Chak who calls it an Oops, and comments “The oopsies I’m thinking of are about well-drawn comics that slipped up”. In this Fastrack, the custom paperclip seems to change position without physical cause.:

Here was a Between Friends that seems to be illustrating a familiar saying with a situation that shows something different. In the picture, isn’t it more someone who has gone down and may not come back up?

The Far Side

We have been getting plenty of submissions or suggestions for The Far Side cartoons by Gary Larson, both classic and recent, some scanned from books and some copied off the 2019-established web site. Some suggestions were meant as classic solo-CIDU posts, but others might fit into one of these quasi-CIDU categories.

But there’s a big problem, that Larson has made a public point of his wish to not have his cartoons reprinted without permission and not under his control. There are people who doubt that this would have legal force if he tried to enforce it; but it doesn’t seem entirely right to defy the wishes of someone whose work we appreciate and want to enjoy.

So generally we have been responding to submissions and suggestions with a reminder of those constraints.

But thinking about Internet standards, short of copying and reposting something, and short also of the middle ground of embedding something by link, there is the fundamental WWW action of linking. That is well established as not infringing anything.

It’s also pretty inconvenient! Hard to have informed discussion threads when the item being commented on is not visible in the same window or tab! Still, it’s not beyond our abilities, CIDUers.

Sent in by Findus as an artwork/layout question rather than overall CIDU, this linked Far Side cartoon raises for them the question “what’s with the lovingly executed reflection in the mirror that is not a ‚mirror image‘? Is this intentional?”

And from Brian R we have this linked Far Side cartoon, which he suggested as a CIDU – but then understood fine the next day!

There actually is a certain amount of good sense to the now-classic bit about tech support asking “Have you tried turning it off and then on again?” as made famous by “The IT Crowd”. Now here in Lard’s World Peace Tips, it is cited in the wrong order. Is that the joke? Or was it accidental? Or intentional but supposed to be meaningful here, where the kite in the picture seems to be “off” since it is not flying, so is poised to be turned on, i.e., launched? My gosh that was long-winded!

Down the Garden Path Dept. Can you convince me this Loose Parts does not at all involve people getting squeaky voices from inhaling Helium?

by EditorM

Take the A Train

I’ve seen scenes like this in movies, and it does seem sensible when taking a kid on the transit to have an emergency meet-up plan.

But some questions:

— Can our New Yorkers, or anyone familiar with the subways there, comment on whether the described trains or routes, and geography, make at least approximate sense? Not so much “Is it a wise plan for these people?” as I figure it is not, but things like whether there is a station called “Eastern Parkway” and the Brooklyn Museum is right by their doorstep..

— And for CIDUers anywhere, is the joke in the complexity of the plan? Is the “under 3” bit because he’s still thinking about diiscounted admission to the museum, or because it would help with the rescue?

Bonus riddle: “My friend Gloria threw up on the subway on Monday”. What life-lesson familiar saying cab we take from that?

by EditorM

Tundra

Robert Kinney sent this in, and asks “What in that sonagram tells us that this is a rooster?  I don’t get what this is trying to tell us, or why it’s supposed to be funny.”

While I was browsing the Tundra site (for context and to check if this one was available in color) I noticed that his Gallery page provides a few comics that some readers felt were in need of explanatiion – which he then provides, sometimes in an answer-strip!

by EditorM

Sunday Funnies and Minor Mysteries – LOLs and Semi-CIDUs, October 10th, 2021

Eats, shoots, and leaves.

Minor Mysteries

These are comics that somebody thought were pretty good, or even full LOL, and not baffling but a little hard to pin down. Like, you can think of a rather plausible explanation of the chuckle — or maybe two! — but there’s nothing that clinches the case that *this* or *that* just has to be the key to what’s going on.

For example, with something like this Andertoons, we might think of the minor mystery as expressed in terms of providing the missing caption. Is it about the odd feeling you’re being watched? Or more like “Oh, where did I set down my glasses?”. It could be either, do you agree?

A Minor Mystery from Darren, who says “I can’t tell if Watson’s jarns need to be interpreted as a specific term.  I’m flummoxed.  Apparently the squirrel is as well?”

Okay, the joke here is that the threatened punishment will involve a cannister vacuum cleaner (in what seems to be a photo clip?) rather than a conventional physical beating or the like. But it’s an unanswerable mystery just what the threat is. Torture by exposure to noisy motor, like a household pet? Being inhaled altogether? Having some portion of his body inhaled?

by EditorM

Saturday Morning Oys – October 9th, 2021

Boise Ed recommends Doc Rat, and this Oy from the October 1 front page at Docrat.com.au was more available than others.

A CIDU-Oy of sorts, sent in by Usual John, who says “This is from Brevity, so it presumably is some kind of Oy, but I really don’t get it. I guess this is a version of Doc Holliday, but why is he offering to be my huckleberry?”

And indeed Brevity is generally going to yield up some species of OY, as here: