Bonus post: train of association

This is actually a long-running plot thread in Safe Havens: The boy called here “Leo” is also, in his other time and place, going to be Leonardo da Vinci. His education in science and technology as a youth in the modern world will underlie his great talents in the 15th and 16th Centuries.

Does anyone else here look at that and think, “Oh yeah, I remember that speculation coming up in The Door Into Summer!“? That 1956/7 novel by R.A. Heinlein involved quite a bit of plot interactions in different time periods, mostly by means of cold sleep, but with a smidgen of actual time-machine travel. The narrator tracks down an eccentric inventor in his hermitage, and learns about his device. When loaded with equal masses on its two pans, it can send them into other times, one to the past and one to the future by equal time-intervals. He extracts this recollection from the inventor:

The narrator does manage to get sent back from 2001 to 1970 (both of which, I remind you, were part of the unclear future when the book was published). After some plot-heavy manipulations, towards the end of the story he reflects:

CIHS: Suburban Fairy Tales

Here’s another CIHS: Comic I Haven’t Seen. The idea here is to sample comics that are unfamiliar to the CIDU readership, for better or worse (Hey, that’s not a bad idea for a strip name.)

The idea of Suburban Fairy Tales is to take familiar characters and riff off them in a somewhat modern environment. In this case, we have the wolf and the 3rd little pig from The Three Little Pigs, a story some of us might be familiar with. Francis Bonnet, the cartoonist, has made a career in art and design, working as a graphic designer and cartoonist for over 20 years. Available at Comics Kingdom

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, May 12th, 2024

For Mothers Day, a bit of both-parental sentiment from Bliss:


Probably obvious, but for the record, it is Susan (the character shown) herself who is trying to give up caffeine.




The Hax advice column this accompanies is here.


TBH, I don’t entirely understand this. I mean, I understand the heartwarming message about group loyalty and generosity — but not whether there was actually supposed to be anything funny.

Wait, could this be heading for an idiom-origins story about “bought the farm”? No? Nah!


Saturday Morning OYs – May 11th, 2024


I guess I missed out Part I. This is trying hard, maybe too hard, but deserves to be seen for cheerful persistence even if not really for brilliant OY-ness.


Since this strip seems to offer a pun every day, it is hard not to over-indulge. But this one was immediately right in the OY spirit!

Ohhhh nooo! There is no way to stop at just one!





The Late Anthropocene

Although CIDU is no longer actively soliciting “synchronicity” submissions, sometimes exceptions must be made. Both of these editorial comics appeared two weeks ago, on Wednesday, April 24th; by coincidence they just happened to be right next to each other in my daily link list (but that was only because of the alphabetical proximity of the author’s names).



P.S. CIDU Bill was exceedingly strict with his requirements for the “synchronicity” tag. They had to be published on exactly the same day, and it was more than just the appearance of an identical object or concept in each comic: the setup or point of the joke had to be the same.

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, May 05th, 2024


Scammers certainly are getting more creative. I got a “reimbursement” from my Jane Doe, the condo property manager, with the email Jane.Doe@propfirm.com, which was suspiciously close to her actual email of Jane.Doe@propfirm.net, and this is a person I occasionally get reimbursements from (luckily as old-school physical checks)





From Dan Piraro’s subscription newsletter, “The Naked Cartoonist“. I’ll conclude with an early collaboration with Wayno; a Bizarro cartoon about red flags in relationships. If only they were this obvious in real life!


Saturday afternoon bonus: May the Fourth

When this strip first appeared last September, I was sorry that I couldn’t read Rhymes with Orange from a source that had a functional comment system, because I was expecting flame wars from the dedicated Star Wars fanatics. However, since September seemed most inappropriate for the subject matter, I decided to schedule this post for a more opportune date in May. There were, of course, two obvious possibilities, but I decided to go with the first one (feel free to re-read this eight days from now).

P.S. The cinnamon bun on top of the Queen’s head is a nice touch, but I will leave it to the considerate (flame-proof) fans in the CIDU audience to pick apart why this strip is just all wrong.