Janice wonders, “Are we keeping up the tradition of guessing Caulfield’s costume?”
Why not? Put your guesses in the comments. I’ll try to remember to update this post with the next clue each day; if not, feel free to add that in the comments.
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday. And the answer is:
The day after Halloween, the explanation. But we don’t find out what Caulfield’s actual costume was, at least not yet.
Kilby comments: This Macanudo isn’t really “laugh out loud” funny (it’s closer to an “Awww”), but I found the diagonal framing (and the “lensing” effect in the title panel) so impressive that wanted to share it with everyone:
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The strip is even better if you open the image in a new tab (or window), and let it fill the screen.
P.S. As long as we are reminiscing about summer, here’s how Calvin & Hobbes spent a similar day (three decades ago):
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P.S. The fact that Bil Keane drew a few of his own “grown up children” strips doesn’t make that Ink Pen any less funny.
Danny Boy was kind enough to send in these LOLs.
Nancy Classics this week gave us this comic from 1955. Half dollars almost call for a geezer alert. Relatively few of them are still made in the U.S.
Dollar coins are no longer minted after multiple failures to gain acceptance (Susan B. Anthony, Sakagawea, U.S. Presidents). The U.S. Mint does produce some American Innovation Dollars, but these are not intended for circulation and are sold at a premium.
From 2001-2020, the U.S. Mint produced half dollars only for collectors because the Federal Reserve already had plenty, but limited production has now resumed.
In 2023, the United States Mint produced a total of 11.38 billion coins for circulation. Here’s the breakdown by denomination:
The following pair was submitted by Chipper 42; today happens to be “Hug a Sheep Day” (make of that what you will: both of these comics were originally published on April 5th).
P.S. While I understand the editorial position that CIDU should not actively solicit “Synchronicity” comics (primarily because the result tends to be far too many mild, random coincidences), I’m not about to ignore a superb example when I see one, especially when there is an ideal date on which to present it.
Mark H. submitted this Frazz as an OY, admitting that it “Took me a minute…” (to get the joke). However, since at least one Editor still doesn’t understand it, a CIDU has been added to the tags. Perhaps Mark would be so kind…?
This Carpe Diem panel was submitted back in July by James Riendeau, who wrote, “Carpe Diem tends to be one I frequently do not get, but today’s was a real head-scratcher. It must be a cultural reference I’m not familiar with.”
Niklas Eriksson is Swedish; those “P”-Jackets might actually be worn there, but I sort of doubt it.
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Solution: The “P” stands for “parking”; the guy is a meter reader, and he’s writing a ticket for the “parked” whale.
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P.S. Claes Oldenberg was the only real mystery, the rest of them were fairly clear.
Early voting has started. The US election will soon be over … maybe.
Some of you likely came across this a few days ago, when Danny Boy in the comments, but it’s worth another chuckle.
This cartoon circulating around the internet probably qualifies as a CIDU, but the joke depends on a wordplay, so I’m posting it here.
I searched for the original source, but couldn’t find it in the many, many times it has been posted on the internet before I saw it this week.
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“?
Usual John submitted this Working Cats strip as a CIDU, commenting: “This is a strip about Brooklyn bodega cats, and these are the two central characters. Sula, the older and wiser cat, acts as a mentor to Taki, the kitten. But I don’t get what Sula is doing in the last panel.”
Even though I can explain exactly what is happening in this strip, I wanted to post this as a Comic I Haven’t Seen. Maritsa Patrinos has appeared at CIDU before, but only for her work on “Six Chix” (Fridays, since 2019).
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I think my very first impression may have been the same thing that John thought: that Sula has assumed the same position that she was in when Taki mistakenly attacked Sula as “vermin”. However, what is actually happening is that Sula is calling attention to the real vermin: Taki’s tail. The weakness is that all the symbols surrounding Taki’s head distract from the marks meant to highlight her tail.
P.S. This strip is the first time that I have ever seen the term “vermin” used as a singular noun; I’ve always thought of it as inherently plural.
Boise Ed submitted this Cornered panel, commenting: “What a great put-down!“
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P.S. A German flasher would hope she says: “That’s gross!“
P.P.S. To which he would then reply: “Dankeschön!“
F.Y.I.: Is everyone is already prepared for the upcoming holiday(s)?
How to tell a fruit from a vegetable:
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Your attitude towards caramelizing may depend on whether you’re the one who does the dishes. Similarly with dishes such as tahdig, “a beautiful, pan-fried Persian rice that is fluffy and buttery on the inside with a perfectly golden crust, which is the layer at the bottom of the pot.” — if you make it right. The first few times might not produce “a perfectly golden crust”.
And we couldn’t leave without a couple of nods to autumn.
The character in the leaf pile is Wallace’s mom:
This one’s from 1962, when leaf burning was still a tradition:
I think that these comics are closer to EWWWs, but DollarBill submitted them as synchronous OYs, commenting “same day, same theme, juxtaposition next to each other in my GoComics daily feed“. The latter is not surprising, given that the titles are alphabetically adjacent to each other:
Blazek’s comic was a brief CIDU for me, but it wasn’t that hard to figure out. If there ever was a feature that GoComics should have renamed for just one day, this was it:
Dan Collins wasn’t taking any chances with misunderstandings: the label on the bubble seems gratuitous and unnecessarily crude, but without it, the color might not have been enough to identify the contents, since he did not indicate the precise location of the source.
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P.S. No matter how it was generated, a bubble that large would have a good chance of capsizing that boat. Aerated water has a much lower density, and cannot support the same weight as normal water, so the vessel sinks. This is a factor with depth charges used against submarines. Even if the explosion itself does not cause a leak, the reduced buoyancy may cause the submarine to fall to a depth where the water pressure is too high, fatally damaging the hull (as happened in the Ocean Gate disaster last year).
Mark H. submitted these three Arlo & Janis strips, commenting: “I don’t know what comic lead times are now (I seem to remember 2-3 weeks), but these comics appeared only eight days [!] after Kris Kristofferson‘s passing. It would be best if the three comics so far this week (Mon – Wed) were posted together.“
P.S. I checked “ArloAndJanis.com“, but all of Jimmy Johnson’s recent posts are just about the relaunch, he hasn’t said anything about lead times or accelerating these strips.
Comics I Don't Understand 