Category / (Not a Cidu)

by zbicyclist

Beware the Ides of March!

Beware the Ides of March! We all know that phrase, but it seems odd that it has crept into the language, since we know few other facts about Roman history. The meaning of “Ides” is a bit confusing to us in the modern world, as these comics show.

Interestingly, the Ides of March were notable in Rome as a deadline for settling debts.

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, March 12th, 2023

A case of breaking the third wall?

Maybe this is a bit of a CIDU — I understand how her laptop might need an OS update, or even her nails, but what’s up with the metaphors?

“Pin code”

How many of these would you call arguable?

Here’s a Quote Investigator link for “It got too crowded, nobody goes there anymore”.

by multipleciduers

Saturday Morning OYs – March Forth, 2023

In Chicago we have not exactly Ballet Parking but rather Poetry Parking, close to the Opera House, and with special packages for Opera parking and for Joffrey Ballet. And “ironically” (as the kids like to say) it is very much not valet parking — it is self-parking and their web site brags of “full automation”. As this signage illustrates, you will be aided in remembering what level you parked on by color-coding and iconography of different poets and poems.

Andréa sends these in. Is there an accent where “Potter” sounds like more like “Putter” than it does here in the midwestern U.S.?

This is a bit of deja vu. One of your editors (not saying which one, but their first initial is “z”) accidentally posted these to last week’s OY page, after that page had been published. Proper PUNishment will be forthcoming.

How about some breakfast Grawlix?

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, February 26th, 2023

Nerd alert

Lucky for me, I figured out that I don’t have to lick my cats, I can just lick my thumbs then wipe across their faces.

But then again, some do tongue-bathe:

Here’s a bit more Bliss, with likely the same characters in a different setting.

by zbicyclist

Double Geezer Alert

So, what holiday is Nancy refusing to appear on, on February 22, 1950?

Some choices:

  1. My parents welcomed me into the world. I’m sure it felt like a holiday to my Mom, after a 3 day labor. As I am now a Geezer, that’s Geezer Alert #1. Bushmiller was probably unaware of this.
  2. It was also Ash Wednesday, which it is also is today. That’s more of a holy day (but not a Holy Day of Obligation) than a holiday, though.
  3. February 22 was then the national holiday of Washington’s Birthday, until that was moved to the third Monday in February in 1971. That’s over 50 years ago, so that’s Geezer Alert #2. And, while the national holiday is officially Washington’s Birthday, it’s more commonly known now as Presidents’ Day.
  4. Lastly, if we were asking a ten year old George Washington what day he was born, he would have said February 11, 1731, not February 22, 1732. The British Calendar Act of 1751 to adopt the Gregorian calendar was applied retroactively to some dates, changing both the day and the year. Therefore, the fact that this was rerun on January 31, 2023 seems appropriate.
    • Why would they have changed George’s birthday? The answer may lie in this passage from the British Calendar Act of 1751: “no Person or Persons whatsoever shall be deemed or taken to have attained the said Age of one and twenty Years, or any other such Age as aforesaid, or to have completed the Time of such Service as aforesaid, until the full Number of Years and Days shall be elapsed on which such Person or Persons respectively would have attained such Age, or would have completed the Time of such Service as aforesaid, in case this Act had not been made”. To make the proper calculation of when young George would turn 21, his birthday had to move.

That’s your (over)dose of trivia for today.

by phsiii

Comics-world News

(Not “Comics World News”, which would be news about comics that spans the world, rather than news ABOUT the world of comics)

Spotted in Randy Cassingham’s This Is True (née This Just In, changed many years ago after SNL’s lawyers got on his case):

So Long to cartoonist Chris Browne, who took over the “Hägar the Horrible” strip from its creator, his father Dik, when Dik died in 1989. Chris wrote and drew the comic until he died, on February 5, at 70.

Some may recall that Dik Browne also created Hi and Lois, which I’d forgotten (if I ever knew).

Some nice coverage (and no, I don’t know why only the one got a preview–it did even when it wasn’t first):

Chris Browne, long time cartoonist of Hägar the Horrible, has died

https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/local/2023/02/16/hagar-the-horrible-comic-cartoonist-chris-browne-dies-sioux-falls/69899983007/

https://comicbook.com/comics/news/chris-browne-hagar-the-horrible-cartoonist-dies-at-70/

https://www.keloland.com/keloland-com-original/hagar-the-horrible-a-family-story/