There are a number of reasons (and ways) that May Day is celebrated around the world, as these comics demonstrate:
Of course, the “real” reason for the holiday is its significance for the labor movement, but that is precisely why it has a somewhat tarnished reputation in the United States…
… especially because of certain militaristic “celebrations” in other parts of the world:
Therefore, since today is not a holiday in the United States, it may be necessary to postpone the celebration:
Could the formulas on the blackboard be from a genuine quantum mechanical derivation? Maybe even Dr. H’s Uncertainty Principle? And the caption almost fits one of its usual ordinary-language formulations — that’s probably the actual point of the gag.
Pete sent this in. It’s also a bit of a CIDU, since wouldn’t knights in armor have metal plate on the bottom of their feet?
And here’s one sent in by Usual John, a bit more of a comic scene-rendering than a gag LOL:
In particular, local rules can cause problems. In the card game Hearts, does the jack of diamonds mean anything special? Can you dump on the first trick? In Monopoly, do you complain that the game takes too long, but put $500 on Free Parking, and allow houses to be turned in for full value? In poker, is the worst low hand A-2-3-4-6 or 2-3-4-5-7? Complain about your favorite example of local rules in the comments.
From the Ask-Me-Anything episode:
CIDU? NIMHO. LOL!
Usual John sent this one. The older man is the manager two levels up.
Puzzled? Think “Exit 1, Exit 2, and Exit 3.”
A devoted cat person is going to be reluctant to blame sneezes on sensitivity to the cat. And cats are in return sensitive over human sneezing, as shown in panels 3 and 4. My cats are even more sensitive than Ludwig, and likely would run away at the point of Achoo!
This week’s LOL-Ewww:
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?
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.
Why is this not a CIDU? Because it clears up when you realize that named artist is real, and learn even the first thing about them. Here’s Wikipedia: ” Lucio Fontana was an Argentine-Italian painter, sculptor and theorist. He’s known as the founder of Spatialism and exponent of abstract painting as the first known artist to slash his canvases – which symbolizes an utter rejection of all prerequisites of art.”
Diamond Lil departs from their pun-a-day usual practice, and gives us a nicely planned meta.
A well-executed entry in the own-petard category.
Featured Image (at top)
Concetto spaziale, Attese, 1965
Lucio Fontana
Just continuing to document days when the English and Spanish versions of Macanudo aren’t translations. Here the text differs, but the fun conceit is the same.
Keep doing variations on a theme, and sooner or later you’ll hit on one the fans don’t remember!
Have you seen the meme about the Welsh translation service?
Is the shell the choice spot for petting a tortoise?
Quite the wily allusion.
But only on condition they walk in together.
Geezer Alert!
This is the LOL-Weird entry for the week. Bizarro in more than name alone!
Thanks to Grawlix and Chemgal for suggesting this artist:
Here’s the LOL-Aww promised in the tags.
Let’s revisit a topic we’ve seen in different lights at different times: How the English and Spanish versions of Baldo may differ in how a joke works.
Here the joke comes off okay in English, as based in written language (or anyhow spelling). The specifics won’t work in Spanish, so they settle for a less striking point.
P.S. The previous day’s comic clarifies that “work for me” probably means more like “as a substitute” than like “as an employee”.
Comics I Don't Understand 