This Bizarro was about a 10-minute CIDU for your editors.
But a week later, this one could be seen as retroactively helpful:
There was a study of corporate annual reports some years ago. It found that when things were going well for a company, active voice was used, e.g. “We increased our sales over X% …”. When things were going poorly, passive voice was used, e.g. “Sales were negatively impacted by …”
I never order these in a restaurant. I assume they have a similar constitution to the McDonald’s McRib, which is just restructured shredded pork with fake grill marks. Am I wrong?
Sorry to say our neighborhood Office Despot has closed. They were good for emergency computer cables.
The NUFFNI-DON is close enough to NUFFIN-DOIN to work as an utterance.
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Americans by now should have received W-2s, 1099s and other notices of all the funds that have passed in or near our hands so we can prepare our 1040s with schedule A, B, C, D and so on. So here’s a few tax related LOLs.
I recall a memoirish article by someone who had been a simultaneous-translation officer at the UN. They recounted most proudly the occasion when they were doing the key Russian-to-English translation for a top Soviet official, who made a point using a very familiar (to Russians) quoted phrase from Pushkin [I’m guessing at this memory], and our protagonist came up with a Shakespeare phrase covering much the same idea, which they substituted! On the fly! [Or maybe they saw a written text just before going on?] Gosh, I hope it wasn’t That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
Well, whatever issues that sort of thing may present for literalist fans, there is no problem if an artist or writer is doing their own translation; or, indeed, preparing versions in different languages without picking out an “original” and a “translation”. And since these paired Macanudo strips give the sources for the quotations, this is a fine thing.
Oh, and with some help from Google Translate, the Charly García line put in English could be “This is endurance”, and the Gloria Gaynor line put in Spanish could be “[Yo] Sobreviviré”.
CIDU QUEUE REMINDER
As always — but it needs saying explicitly again now and then — we like to think of this as a reader-participation site, and not just for your invaluable (or anyhow amusing) comments, but for suggestions of comics to run and discuss.
Please share your specific suggestions of panels or strips, in CIDU, LOL, and OY categories, either by direct email to
We’re all still chuckling over the Sturm und Drang inboxes; but Darren also raises a question whether there is some sort of art trickery going on — like a different face showing up if you invert the picture. Well, it doesn’t seem to be exactly that; but maybe something similar?
This remains a semi-CIDU, as most of the allusions are obscure to an outsider; yet the jokes are clear enough once the basic point is caught that this depends on something about the ninja turtles.
Some months ago CIDU was asked to remove all the Far Side comics from our site, and we did so.
It’s their intellectual property, and they are within their rights. Certainly there are many social media sites trying to attract attention with Far Side cartoons, and it must be like Whack-A-Mole to reign those in. Still, they are missed, and Dave Whamond’s comic here is a reminder to check out the legit site for old and new work from Larson: https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff
CIDU QUEUE REMINDER
As always — but it needs saying again now and then — we like to think of this as a reader-participation site, and not just for your invaluable (or anyhow amusing) comments, but for suggestions of comics to run and discuss.
Please share your specific suggestions of panels or strips, in CIDU, LOL, and OY categories, either by direct email to
Abraham Lincoln was one of H.T. Webster‘s personal heroes, and today would have been his 215th birthday. Whenever an appropriate weekday series was scheduled for February 12th, Webster occasionally took the opportunity to draw a birthday tribute. This example (taken from “The Best of H.T. Webster“, page 253) originally appeared in 1919 (on what would have been Lincoln’s 110th birthday):
This video from the Smithsonian Magazine shows a couple of alternate designs that were proposed for the Lincoln Memorial, along with five surprising facts: 1) Lincoln was an accomplished wrestler; and … 2) … is the only President to hold a patent for his own invention; 3) … stored papers in his top hat; 4) … attended seances in the White House; and 5) … established the Secret Service.
Comics I Don't Understand 