Thanks to Usual John, for suggesting this one, and also for alerting us that D.D. Degg’s column at The Daily Cartoonist had a look at this strip , and very courteously linked to us when he applied the phrase “Comic I Don’t Understand” to this ThatABaby.
All right — Why Dagwood? Do you think he is known for Frisbee mishaps?
As always — but it needs saying explicitly again now and then — we like to think of this as a reader-participation site, and not just for your invaluable (or anyhow amusing) comments, but for suggestions of comics to run and discuss.
Please share your specific suggestions of panels or strips, in CIDU, LOL, and OY categories, either by direct email to
(that’s “CIDU dot Submissions” at gmail dot com) or by using the handy-dandy Suggest A CIDU form page!
I thought the difficulty regarding the USB Type-A plugs was traditionally the alignment when making the connection. And that disconnecting is, if anything, a bit too easy — as the post title notes, it doesn’t take much.
Side questions: Is the Spanish text somewhat antique, as the English is? And, in the middle panel do we see more of the sword that doesn’t quite match the reveal of the last panel?
As always — but it needs saying explicitly again now and then — we like to think of this as a reader-participation site, and not just for your invaluable (or anyhow amusing) comments, but for suggestions of comics to run and discuss.
Please share your specific suggestions of panels or strips, in CIDU, LOL, and OY categories, either by direct email to
(that’s “CIDU dot Submissions” at gmail dot com) or by using the handy-dandy Suggest A CIDU form page!
A couple of comics for which we could not answer “What is the joke here?” but OTOH could not in good conscience call a clear CIDU and devote a full daily standalone to.
This might be a Semi-CIDU, as there is the question of whether this is how the cowboy bathes (and gets the horse to manage the timing and coins), or it’s at the horse’s volition as it wants its gear and rider to be clean.
Hmmm, do they or do they not know there is a big Internet program/project called “Second Life” ? [Which I’m sure was around in 2009.]
P.S. Current SecondLife site.
As always — but it needs saying explicitly again now and then — we like to think of this as a reader-participation site, and not just for your invaluable (or anyhow amusing) comments, but for suggestions of comics to run and discuss.
Please share your specific suggestions of panels or strips, in CIDU, LOL, and OY categories, either by direct email to
(that’s “CIDU dot Submissions” at gmail dot com) or by using the handy-dandy Suggest A CIDU form page!
The estimable Allan Holtz, comic strip historian and proprietor of The Stripper’s Guide, has invited CIDU readers to join in trying to make sense of these example panels from the vintage series Papa Knows. He provides an historical deep-dive and some interpretive overview in last Friday’s blog column, in the Obscurity of the Day series, but leaves these four as examples where it seems no genuine attempt at a gag can be found. — What we like to call Comics I Don’t Understand!
(As Allan explains, “Obscurity of the Day is just posts about rare and overlooked newspaper comics; generally speaking if they’re hard to understand it’s because of the gulf between our time and theirs. Papa Knows, on the other hand, seems to be downright weird no matter when you might have read it!”)
Mark H. sends this one in as an LOL (not a CIDU). The original goes like this:
Jane and Martin
Sitting in a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G!
First comes love
Then comes marriage
Then comes baby
In a baby carriage!
So can we provide some finishes to Randall Munroe’s starting lines, or provide our own?
This is a massive LOL, and jam-packed with easy and harder allusions as a sort-of CIDU element. Hey, I’m still struggling to decide if a particular Frederick Wiseman film is invoked. And is Sprechtswimming best understood in relation to Sprechstimme?
Janis is here without her Arlo, but the cartoon is heading for what we’d have to call Arlo territory in the CIDU sense!
I thought farmer’s daughter’s tan a clever play on the familiar farmer’s tan but wasn’t sure what the intended extended meaning was or whether it has anything to do with farmer’s daughter jokes. But I thought it might help to establish it was a nonce coinage by pointing to many standard dictionary entries for farmer’s tan and the absence of any for farmer’s daughter’s tan. But couldn’t find any of even the former! But at the last minute, at least Urban Dictionary turns up with an entry for farmers tan!
Kilby writes: This is another comic that CIDU Bill drafted in 2019, but never actually posted. I think most readers will get it pretty quickly, but I have to admit that it took me a moment before I figured out the point; perhaps the same thing happened to Bill as well.
Comics I Don't Understand 