This comic is dated 2017 (before the CIDU server meltdown sometimes referred to as “comicgeddon”), but Bill must have retrieved it later for a new draft. The original song was released 68 years ago today, back when he was not quite half a year old.
CIDU Bill always claimed that he named the “Arlo Award” concept after Arlo Guthrie, and there is still a statement to that effect in the CIDU FAQ. Anyone who has followed CIDU for a while will have realized that this was just a polite cover story, as the strip above clearly shows.
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.
This is a CIDU-Oy — is the joke merely in the polysemy of places? Or is there something special about the named cities, like if they all have Marathons and that’s how somebody is likely to break a leg?? Or nothing more? I don’t understand!
Bill drafted this comic back in 2019; it seemed appropriate to post it on the first day of Hanukkah.
P.S. On various occasions Robin has used different spellings (such as “Hanukah“), whereas Bill was always careful to spell it “Chanukah” (as seen in the tags). Unfortunately, Bill’s memorable “(C)Han(n)uk(k)a(h)” spelling bracket was destroyed by Comicgeddon, but there was a nice bonus panel on the subject in a Menorah post in 2018.
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!
Cute enough!
Thanks to Boise Ed for this OY-CIDU from Lola:
The partial CIDU designation is occasioned by the surprisingly large number of GoComics commenters who aver they just don’t get it — even after putting together “Skip Recap”. Evidently not in the habit of watching serialized TV over a streaming service.
The squirrel’s comment was briefly puzzling. The drawing doesn’t look much like a bottle, nor a glass, so the “alcoholic beverages” reading of “spirits” was blocked. But that’s what it has to be, isn’t it?
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!
There’s no question about whether these two comics are (nearly) synchronous, the puzzle is why both of them showed up one day apart in November. There are no Jewish holidays anywhere in the vicinity.
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.
Comics I Don't Understand 