I find it hard to believe that any newspaper editor would have let Get Fuzzy strip this appear in print, even if the relevant expression is a little bit dated:
… The last dialog bubble in the fourth panel is closer to overkill than actually necessary, but it certainly makes it clear that the joke in the third panel was intentional.
This Yuval Robichek comic was submitted as a “choice half-Arlo”, but in Bill’s day it would never have appeared on the primary CIDU site: he would have banned it to his separate “Arlo” page. (But since it is a web comic, it wouldn’t qualify for an Arlo “award”.)
Boise Ed submitted this one last year, commenting “Every now and then, Pardon My Planet comes up with a real zinger.” I think I’ve seen it before, but I can’t find it in a CIDU post, and in any case it’s worth repeating:
The not-quite-complete “Arlo” moment in this “Zits” came as a big surprise. Perhaps King Features relaxed their censorship standards when they relaunched the Comics Kingdom website?
… P.S. And what if Jeremy’s mom had not left it out? What then?
Two half Arlos published on exactly the same day do not count as a whole synchronicity, but this Luann was pretty good, too:
… P.S. Note the annoying, but otherwise irrelevant color error in the second panel.
Boise Ed said about this Argyle Sweater: “Perhaps this is the fifth wall, since he’s erasing four“:
Another meta Macanudo:
… P.S. The title panel bears a fair resemblance to “In the Court of the Crimson King“, but it’s unlikely that it was intentional:
Danny Boy sends this in as a CIDU, but rather than post it long after Halloween we’re putting it here. “What, what? “I was making rather scary yesterday.” Is that something like “making merry”? I.e. celebrating and now hungover (and just getting into the office at a quarter to five)?
No, I don’t think I’ve answered my own question. “Making rather scary” is still pretty opaque.”
Or, trying to scare the street urchins?
Danny Boy hopes “that mechanism isn’t set up to treat the TP as reusable!”
Carl Fink submitted this Hägar the Horrible strip, commenting: “I think this is way too obvious to actually be an Arlo. Is there a category for ‘The Funnies just showed a young couple having sex in front of their neighbors, only slightly off panel’?“
There are a series of fine distinctions related to CIDU Bill’s “Arlo” designation. Carl is absolutely correct in recognizing that this comic does not qualify for an “Arlo Award“, because there isn’t any hidden wordplay, and nothing has been secretly smuggled past the syndicate’s censors; the hot action is right there (to the left of the second panel), for all of us (not) to see.
Whether or not this is “Arlo material” is a matter of subjective opinion. There is nothing objectively offensive about two pairs of underwear, and especially not with such frumpy ones as shown here. I don’t think that even Bill would have thrown this comic into his “Arlo Page” purgatory, and he was especially careful about not wanting to offend even the most sensitive of CIDU readers.
Nevertheless, this example is surprisingly risqué for a syndicated comic, and all the more so for one published by King Features, which in my experience has always been the most “sanitized” of all the syndicates. It also shows that someone else (presumably Gary Hallgren, for lack of any official information) has taken over the writing duties for “Hägar”. I cannot imagine that Dik or Chris Browne would ever have produced a comic like this one (even if their name still appears on it).
If this strip (pun intended) didn’t trigger the KF-censors, then it’s probably because the editor decided that the “sex” is indefinite and unprovable: concerned parents could theoretically explain to their curious kids that the new couple have just changed into their pajamas (to go to Hägar’s bed). The duplicity is psychotic, but that’s the way Americans behave about this subject: remember the “wardrobe malfunction“?
Unexpectedly, this was something of a minor CIDU, with comments disagreeing over which partner is actually the neatnik. (Also just a hint of Arlo speculation based on how the drawn legs bend at the knees.)
Nice to find the occasional clear-and-direct LOL from PMP!
For once we can let this stand as a LOL on its own, and not indulge a compulsion to track down the specific advice column it probably accompanied originally.
Mark H. notes “This Arlo is a Janis”.
Or maybe she’s just moving the drapes to give him a better view of the moon. Or of …
Thanks to both Darren and Phred who sent this one in, as mostly LOL but with enough of a factual background question to make it almost a CIDU. Why is it a matter for sticklers?
P.S. It turns out this comic was discussed at Comic Strip of the Day; but we ran across that after this post was already prepared.
CIDU Bill always claimed that he named the “Arlo Award” concept after Arlo Guthrie, and there is still a statement to that effect in the CIDU FAQ. Anyone who has followed CIDU for a while will have realized that this was just a polite cover story, as the strip above clearly shows.
Uh-oh! “Arlo” warning for younger and more sensitive viewers.
As many here will already know, these Nick G “comics” originate as illustrations accompanying the Washington Post advice column conducted by Carolyn Hax. The connection is sometimes close, and often sort of tangential. The column is behind a paywall, but for those interested here is a free “gift article link” to the August 23 column.
I had a stationary bike. After a few years, I had done 12,500 miles on that bike — halfway around, at the equator. But I wondered what degree of north latitude would be12,500 miles long (so I could see what cities were at that latitude). I thought I’d figured it out, but wanted validation; it had been a long time since I was in junior high. We were having parent-teacher conferences, so I asked the 7th grade math teacher. She took the problem and said she’d get back to me. Never did. When my daughter asked about it, she said she’d lost the problem — but didn’t ask for another copy.
I repeated this with math teachers each year. Never got an answer.
Can you finnish this problem?
Thanks to Chemgal for this Zits, which earns a LOL-Ewww!
And here is your LOL-CIDU-Geezer for the week!
Another CIDU-LOL, or Arlo-LOL, and the one calling for the category tag about “There must be a popculture reference that will clear it up instantly” — if you can see putting the chess world in “popculture”. Yes, something upsetting happened recently in the world of chess, and then Twitter has its way with answering some of the questions raised.
Thanks to dollarbill for this DSOH, featuring one of their favorite tropes, counting sheep. See also the posts in Random Comments and Site Comments on his idea for a structured-commenting game. (Please respond there, not so much here.)
Well, there’s a good OY on the left, and a good LOL on the right, and I’m feeling too lazy to get out the cropper, so let’s print it twice, once today, and once yesterday or tomorrow.
Not a huge LOL, but Tiger and Punkinhead here are reproducing a classic problem in the literature of logical representation, going back to Bertrand Russell.
An Arlo-LOL from Divad who says “I’ve got a pretty good guess what was on Arlo’s mind (in general), but I’m trying to not picture what he’s specifically thinking.”
Comics I Don't Understand 