Category / (Not a Cidu)

by Kilby

What’s in a Shirt?

As these first two strips show, Charlie Brown’s shirt had already become an icon just six months after Peanuts began syndication, and Schulz created a number of gags on the topic.

There is danger in innovation:

Nevertheless, the rewards can be satisfying:

Do clothes make the man?

Mark Parisi frequently uses Peanuts characters in “Off the Mark“, and has produced a number of gags based on Charlie Brown’s shirt.

This one is directly from Parisi’s OtM website, because it predates the archive at GoComics:

Reworking the coloration produces an alternative gag:

As this screenshot from one of the TV specials shows, Schulz was well aware of Charlie Brown’s selection dilemma:

by zbicyclist

Calendar Girls

JMcAndrew surfaced these Beetle Bailey comics with somewhat the same girlie calendar.

“I’ve seen hundreds of Miss Buxley being sexually harassed comics. I’m still surprised that the syndicate let Mort Walker put fully naked woman in the strip.”

Of course, a calendar is pretty useless for telling you if this is Wednesday or Thursday. But he’s just looking for an excuse.

The others JMcAndrew sent in show that same calendar post, but with strategic additions:

It’s curious that the number of days in a week vary across the calendars.

This type of calendar used to be a common site; it seemed every gas station had one hung up. I can’t remember the last time I saw one hung up.

And here’s today’s vocabulary lesson:

JMcAndrew wonders: “Are they watching a cooking show where they make Jello?”

by zbicyclist

When Can You Say You’ve Read the Book?

Opinion time: Is an audiobook reading?

Or, better, when can you say you’ve experienced what the author meant to say?

Book

e-Book

Condensed book (Reader’s Digest used to do these, but stopped in 1997. But there seems to be a revival.)

Graphic novel of the book (e.g. Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower have been done this way)

Audiobook

Condensed audiobook (still around)

Cliff’s Notes

Movie (there are HOW many versions of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol?)

Wikipedia plot summary

There’s a line to be drawn SOMEWHERE, but where do you personally draw it? There also hybrid experiences: A couple of months ago, I got an audiobook of David Copperfield, but then did about 1/3 of the book by reading it. This meant that while I was reading, I was often hearing the voice of the audiobook narrator in my head.

For some of us, it might not be a choice:

by zbicyclist

Saluting Margaret Wade

JMcAndrew asks: “Is there any character in comics treated more unfairly than Margaret Wade? She doesn’t do anything to deserve this.” And sends in these exhibits.


JMcAndrew: “This one where he intentionally walks in on her in the shower is all kinds of wrong.”

There is, of course, the running gag in Blondie in which Dagwood is interrupted in the bath. But that was used so often in lost any prurient effect and just the comic effect remained. And Dagwood somehow was always able to get a towel around critical parts.

by zbicyclist

Sunday Funnies – LOLs – June 8, 2025

JMcAndrew sends this in: “Wouldn’t he be able to see a picture of the person he’s been matched with and probably other identifying information like their age? Also with the prevalence of actual child predators on the internet I’m surprised that the syndicate was okay with this storyline. I know he’s an idiot but this is like when Cartman on South Park tries to meet older men and joins NAMBLA.”

by zbicyclist

Recent or Old?

The New Yorker has a feature called Laugh Lines. The challenge there is to place several cartoons in chronological order. We’re going to play a version of this with pairs of cartoons that appear in the CIDU archives. Each pair will be from the same comic, so style will be a clue. The link with the letter points to the original posting here at CIDU. The years aren’t that far apart, because they only go back to when Bill had to restart the site. I’ve added a couple at the end that aren’t from the CIDU archives and are farther apart.

Pair #1. A:

B:

Pair #2. A:

B:

Pair #3. A:

B:

#4, a triplet (not from CIDU archives)

A:

B:

C:

#5 (not from CIDU archives)

A:

B:

by zbicyclist

There’s Always Room for Jello!

JMcAndrew sends in this old Beetle Bailey: “I collect vintage advertising and I am very aware of the crimes against humanity committed with aspic Jello salads.”

He also sent in a bit of vintage Jello advertising:

You may wonder about that fish. Fish in Jello? But some years ago your editor worked for a US pet food company, and we wanted to see what pet foods were sold in other countries that we might sell here. One we had shipped in from Australia was “Pilchards in Aspic”, essentially small herrings in a gelatin matrix, sold as a cat food. We passed on this one.

from Wikipedia: “By the 1950s, salads became so popular that Jell-O responded with savory and vegetable flavors such as celery, Italian, mixed vegetable, and seasoned tomato. These flavors have since been discontinued.”