BobO submitted this XKCD (#2891) as a CIDU. I’ve zoomed the image to make the details easier to decipher.
…
The “mouseover” or “title” text reads: “I’m sure the building inspectors will approve my design once they finally manage to escape.“
P.S. I’m impressed that Randall Monroe drew each iteration of the square separately, and did not copy/paste anything.
I understood the primary gag in the final panels, but I do not understand the meteorological setup in the first panel:
…
Perhaps it’s just the awkward expression: how can a hurricane “drop a millibar“? Did anything like this actually happen during either of the recent hurricanes?
I might as well include the previous two B&C strips, which feature Horace’s “intentional CIDUs. The solution to the first one was explained in Week 94 of the Invitational, in which Gene Weingarten solicited even more obscure “Horace” material. (The results will appear in the Invitational on Halloween, and the better ones will probably be immortalized in future Barney & Clyde strips.)
The second one I had to look up myself, but Barney’s tip in the last panel was a big help:
P.S. Given the solution, this one might also need a “geezer” tag.
Here’s a third “Horace” strip from last year, which was also included (with its solution) in the Invitational article:
Back in August(†), Usual John submitted this One Big Happy strip as a partial CIDU, commenting: “I guess I sort of understand the comic, but I have no idea what movie star Ruthie has in mind.“
…
I agree with John: I cannot recognize any resemblance to a specific actress; she just looks generically old and ugly (both with and without the “app”, which I assume is the intended gag).
P.S. (†) I had a little difficulty finding this strip, because the URL was incomplete. Please remember to make sure the URL you submit is specific to the date of the intended comic, and not just the general “front page” URL for “today’s” comic.
Mark H. submitted this Frazz as an OY, admitting that it “Took me a minute…” (to get the joke). However, since at least one Editor still doesn’t understand it, a CIDU has been added to the tags. Perhaps Mark would be so kind…?
This Carpe Diem panel was submitted back in July by James Riendeau, who wrote, “Carpe Diem tends to be one I frequently do not get, but today’s was a real head-scratcher. It must be a cultural reference I’m not familiar with.”
Niklas Eriksson is Swedish; those “P”-Jackets might actually be worn there, but I sort of doubt it.
…
Solution: The “P” stands for “parking”; the guy is a meter reader, and he’s writing a ticket for the “parked” whale.
…
P.S. Claes Oldenberg was the only real mystery, the rest of them were fairly clear.
Early voting has started. The US election will soon be over … maybe.
Some of you likely came across this a few days ago, when Danny Boy in the comments, but it’s worth another chuckle.
This cartoon circulating around the internet probably qualifies as a CIDU, but the joke depends on a wordplay, so I’m posting it here.
I searched for the original source, but couldn’t find it in the many, many times it has been posted on the internet before I saw it this week.
Mark H. submitted this 9CWL quite a while ago(+), commenting: “Looks like the visuals in the first two frames are out of sequence. What woman wraps a towel around her head before going into the shower?“
…
I agree that it does look odd, but I think the “out/in/out” sequence is necessary to make the “dash” effect work in the final panel. It’s really just that towel (on her head) that seems out of place.
P.S. (+) This strip is from August, but may have been overlooked amidst all the “swimming“, “milkshake“, and “accelerated maturation” issues we have seen in recent weeks. After all, they are all basically the same topic (the same one that we did not see just this past Wednesday, in “Hägar the Enabler“).
However, as long as we are on that subject, Mark H. also submitted the 9CWL below as an Arlo, commenting: “Given that they’ve never been intimate, it’s not clear how she knows how big his macadamias are….”
…
Perhaps she was just estimating their diameter from the effectiveness of his testosterone level on her…
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.
Usual John submitted this Working Cats strip as a CIDU, commenting: “This is a strip about Brooklyn bodega cats, and these are the two central characters. Sula, the older and wiser cat, acts as a mentor to Taki, the kitten. But I don’t get what Sula is doing in the last panel.”
Even though I can explain exactly what is happening in this strip, I wanted to post this as a Comic I Haven’t Seen. Maritsa Patrinos has appeared at CIDU before, but only for her work on “Six Chix” (Fridays, since 2019).
…
I think my very first impression may have been the same thing that John thought: that Sula has assumed the same position that she was in when Taki mistakenly attacked Sula as “vermin”. However, what is actually happening is that Sula is calling attention to the real vermin: Taki’s tail. The weakness is that all the symbols surrounding Taki’s head distract from the marks meant to highlight her tail.
P.S. This strip is the first time that I have ever seen the term “vermin” used as a singular noun; I’ve always thought of it as inherently plural.
This “Mr. Boffo” strip was submitted by David Curwin as a CIDU. I didn’t think the gag was that difficult to decipher, but Zbicyclist pointed out that the real question is how many historical inaccuracies did Joe Martin manage to incorporate into just this one comic?
P.S. The strip’s publication date does not count as a mistake. Columbus Day originally fell on October 12th, but that was according to the Julian calendar. It was moved to the second Monday in October for convenience, but would actually have fell on October 21st, if the modern (Gregorian) calendar had been in use back then.
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.
I think that these comics are closer to EWWWs, but DollarBill submitted them as synchronous OYs, commenting “same day, same theme, juxtaposition next to each other in my GoComics daily feed“. The latter is not surprising, given that the titles are alphabetically adjacent to each other:
Blazek’s comic was a brief CIDU for me, but it wasn’t that hard to figure out. If there ever was a feature that GoComics should have renamed for just one day, this was it:
Dan Collins wasn’t taking any chances with misunderstandings: the label on the bubble seems gratuitous and unnecessarily crude, but without it, the color might not have been enough to identify the contents, since he did not indicate the precise location of the source.
…
P.S. No matter how it was generated, a bubble that large would have a good chance of capsizing that boat. Aerated water has a much lower density, and cannot support the same weight as normal water, so the vessel sinks. This is a factor with depth charges used against submarines. Even if the explosion itself does not cause a leak, the reduced buoyancy may cause the submarine to fall to a depth where the water pressure is too high, fatally damaging the hull (as happened in the Ocean Gate disaster last year).
Comics I Don't Understand 