Just BTW, does “aggro” in casual speech these days mean aggressive or aggravating?
Dýou think this is well-positioned to become even more popular than the one about the land of the blind?
A fine line between pun and equivocation.
In the GoComics comments, Teresa Burritt (creator of Frog Applause) revealed that this was a CIDU for her! (Several commenters answered to provide the Stephen King reference.)
Posted to Facebook group “Unappreciated Puns” by user Kerriann O’Sullivan with message “Happy Monday from the Southern Hemisphere “, so I was sort of expecting to have to work out a joke based on Australian accent or usage. But no, as it turns out; this seems to work out okay in General American.
Thanks to jjmcgaffey for suggesting Rae the Doe, and
for calling this “a kerning pun!” to assist anyone who may find it puzzling.
And an OY-semi-CIDU from Maggiethecartoonist:
This song is in that peculiar category of musical quasi-familiarity, where I became acquainted with a piece from its use in advertising, or as a television theme song, that I probably never would have run into otherwise. “New Soul” by Yael Naim. “You’ve Got Time” by Regina Spektor.“One Week” by The Barenaked Ladies (this one I might have found otherwise). “Flower Duet from Lakmé” by Léo Delibes (this one I surely would have run into sooner or later, but did encounter first in the British Airways ads). Most of those I put in a playlist at some point or even bought further work from the same artist ; but “Mister Roboto” always remained for me just “that song from one of those car commercials” until last week, when this cartoon appeared and I wanted to verify the idea suggested by the pun. (BTW, the car brand turns out to have been VW, and the sketch uses comic actor Tony Hale.)
(This is an OY by virtue of the “language play in any general way” subcategory.)
It seems Diamond Lil concentrates on OY punchlines almost every day; so it would be a danger to keep too often considering them for our weekly OY collections. Still, every once in a while, maybe for no particular reason, one of them will jump out and say “Use me!”.
Thanks to Philip for suggesting!
And if this was a semi-CIDU for you, let Editor Phil help out by pointing out that just before this moment of dialogue, the visitor must have addressed this officer as “Skipper”.
If you’re thinking “Didn’t we just see this same joke?” you may be remembering this Life On Earth we posted recently. (Hey, that was in Sunday Funnies – LOLs, May 7th, 2023 . How come the Farcus today goes in the OYs?)
Found on Facebook without good information. We’ve tagged for “Frank Svoboda” based on the (c) line; but searching that name finds someone who was a collector / dealer / agent but doesn’t say he was also a creator, and those roles could fit with copyright holder. So maybe the writing on the side of the bar is the signature? It seems to say “Phranque” and while there is a band with that name I didn’t find any cartoonists or illustrators. And maybe that brings us back around to Frank S, who could have liked stylizing his first name.
A suggestion from Maggiethecartoonist:
Discussion among Maggie and the editors suggested that there are several informations perhaps not immediately known to all readers, which are useful to unpacking the multiple jokes/OYs here. So something of a semi-CIDU.
Thanks to Philip, who sent this in and suggested a better wording for the punch line. … Which we’ll print below the cartoon image, so you have a moment to comment with your own suggestion first, if you like.
As Philip asks, Wouldn’t this be better as “Making a cool car is hot work.”?
I think we have established pretty confidently that Baldo is done in English first then translated for the Spanish edition; so missing the pun-portunity in the English is not likely explained as translation problem from the Spanish original . Nonetheless, for whatever light it may shed, here is the Spanish version: