Understand it, I do (not?)

understansitidonot

Kilby writes: This is another one of Bill Bickel’s “vintage” draft posts from 2018. Back then, Bill once wrote that his interest in Star Wars completely terminated after the original trilogy, so perhaps he was not aware of the significance of the inverted word order, but he also commented that “Okay, even I know who Yoda is! … Yoda’s cat on the other hand…“

P.S. I originally scheduled this for the seventh anniversary of “Rogue One“, but it got bumped to make space for the Saturday OYs. In any case, seeing as Yoda didn’t appear in that film at all, it’s clearly more appropriate to schedule it for the fourth anniversary of “The Rise of Skywalker“. Star Wars fanatics are free to discuss which of those two films they liked better; Bill’s answer would of course have been “neither“.

Clearing a route to the garbage (Random retro LOLs, 2019 or before, Part 3) 


The elevator call button scenario is a familiar trope for Horace :

But others are not banned from exploring a similar idea:













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An OY!


Sunday Funnies – LOLs, December 17th, 2023

A Sad-LOL for sure!



Or is this maybe a Semi-CIDU for anybody?



McDonald’s decides to open one test site for a new concept, CosMc’s, to overmuch social media hype, and now a tip of the hat from Greg Cravens. In the current iteration, it’s drive-thru only, with no restrooms.



The “5-31” in the panel is easy enough, but I’m having a hard time making out the year in the (c) strip. Scrolling in the Comics Kingdom archive to the previous few strips, I think it could be 1967. 

Which is maybe late enough that she might have turned out to be the surgeon rather than the nurse. (Certainly by that year the joke/riddle of “A father and his son were out for a Sunday drive” was already quite popular.) Or no, how could a surgeon go out with an enlisted man?

[Does anybody need the rest of the story??]

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, December 10th, 2023

Yep, that’s what I thought she meant too! Did anyone here not think that first?


Such a nice use of expressive objects.


BTW, if you are looking for a great read, try The Wager. There’s also a long excerpt in The New Yorker a few months back.



Sunday Funnies – LOLs, December 3rd, 2023

You’d think a company or school or institution could provision their marker-boards with prop-up signs that say “PLEASE DO NOT ERASE!”. The flowchart / architecture sketch on the board does seem to make sense at any rate.


Nice variant on an old theme:


There are worse alternatives, like those strips that get passed down to other, lesser talents. Is Walt still alive in Gasoline Alley?


I have no doubt this month’s tagline, “Deck us all with Boston Charlie” will be familiar, but here’s the rest of Walt Kelly’s fractured carol:

Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., an’ Kalamazoo!
Nora’s freezin’ on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!

Don’t we know archaic barrel
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou?
Trolley Molly don’t love Harold,
Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Polly wolly cracker ‘n’ too-da-loo!
Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
Antelope Cantaloupe, ‘lope with you!

Hunky Dory’s pop is lolly,
Gaggin’ on the wagon, Willy, folly go through!
Chollie’s collie barks at Barrow,
Harum scarum five alarm bung-a-loo!

Dunk us all in bowls of barley,
Hinky dinky dink an’ polly voo!
Chilly Filly’s name is Chollie,
Chollie Filly’s jolly chilly view halloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Double-bubble, toyland trouble! Woof, woof, woof!
Tizzy seas on melon collie!
Dibble-dabble, scribble-scrabble! Goof, goof, goof!


He Must Be Nuts

aug21 kevin acorns.JPG

Kilby writes: This Sunday Kevin & Kell strip‡ was drafted by CIDU Bill in 2019, but never posted. I’m not sure why Holbrook published this strip in February.† I would have thought that late fall or early winter would have been more appropriate, but perhaps the idea was to make the stash revelation completely unexpected.

P.S. (†) – Both the strip one week before and two weeks later are covered in snow; this one and the following Sunday strip look more like springtime.

P.P.S. (‡) – According to the remaining comments on the author’s website, there was originally a misspelling in the first panel, which was later corrected. Nice to see such artistic dedication!

Don’t forget Carol Lay!

Sometimes she’s just so brilliant … even if not actually funny (nor trying).

For the longer-term fans than I have been, has she previously made this much use of photos and photo-realism in drawing?

The sense made of the Memory Palace idea here is more loosely evocative than a strict adherence to the traditional prescriptions for a mnemonic tool (or modern self-help and DIY expositions). It’s a bit more in the direction of emotionally evocative recollection, though not going as far into that mode as, say, Nate DiMeo’s The Memory Palace podcast on Radiotopia. Nor is it madeleine-sniffing. But it’s somewhere in that territory. But jumps back to face its original speculative-fictional premise in practical-level terms.