by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, June 4th, 2023

Show of hands, did the term “body shop” make you think of lotions and scents, or crumpled fenders?

A couple of maggiethecartoonist suggestions:

When BillR sent this one in, we all racked our brains for common sayings, or notable events, or famous stories, involving tomatoes and lemons …

… but then it dawned on us that there is a traditional remark about comparisons, and it involves apples and oranges. So this could be a joke about literalizing that idiomatic remark, thrown into confusion by a colorist’s error! (Subsequently we found it discussed at the Comic Strip of the Day site, and there also attributed to colorist error.)

Here’s one spotted by Usual John at Comics Kingdom. It feels eerily like something we just recently saw, and discussed, with remarks about how it could stand in for a motto for CIDU. But then again, there’s today’s date, 5-31, right there in the panel; which makes it less likely this could actually be an oldie that CK happened to replay today.

Update! We put the above questions to an expert archivalist, who came thru with answers!

First of all, yes this was a rerun; but because the previous Comics Kingdom appearance was exactly a year earlier, on 2022-05-31, the date “5-31” embedded in the artwork for panel 3 does not mean this comic was actually new this week; nor does it make that date a paste-over job. (Though the syndication copyright notice running vertically between panels 1 and 2 does have the current year inserted.)

Also, it did appear at CIDU, and get discussed, on its publication date last year. Which is not really “just recently” as suggested above, but also is not absurdly far off.

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by multipleciduers

Saturday Morning OYs – June 3rd, 2023

(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”.

by EditorM

Yay! … but Boo!

The background story is hard to explain (especially as I have barely followed it myself). Suffice it that — due to some repairs or renovations on their house — this family has been living outdoors in an extended backyard for a long time, variously in tents, or in this treehouse, or in the scrub with local wildlife.

(The one previous appearance of Home Free on CIDU was from the setup of this situation. We didn’t get it then, either.)

And Yay! to the cartoonist for that “Ring Ring Ring” in the first panel! I completely accepted it as a drawing device to indicate the electro-mechanical sound of a phone ringing. But no, it was the wife just saying the words “Ring Ring Ring”. Good job of surprising us with a defeated assumption!

But then tut-tut on showing the string just drooping there slackly! As of the day following the GoComics appearance of this strip, some ninety percent of the comments there are devoted to pointing out that for a “tin can telephone” to work, the string has to be pulled taut between the cans, essentially in a single straight line. (And secondary to this, the attachment of the string with a piece of tape, shown in the first panel, is a rel;ated part of why this setup wouldn’t work — to get the vibrations to transfer, the traditional setup is to punch a small hole in the base of the can, thread the string thru the hole, and tie a knot on the end so it can pull taut.)

Hard to guess whether the cartoonist just didn’t know; or knew but just didn’t think it would matter; or knew but built in an excuse, that they can quite easily hear each other by the sound carrying in the open air, and the tin-can-telephone is just their little joke!

by EditorM

A little tech support here, please

Okay, the general line of the joke is clear enough. But what really are the respective methods they are using, and contrasting? Is Arlo using Shazam on a laptop? Using the laptop to view the radio station’s website to find their “now playing” widget? Or is that laptop doing the streaming and he is checking the streaming service? Is Janis using anything besides Google and Wikipedia? How did she know what to look up?

P.S. The ArloAndJanis.com web page is still not providing any content.

Further P.S. The next day’s strip was sort of a sequel.

by multipleciduers

No, Memorial Day is not exactly the same as Veterans’ Day

One difference is in the balance or proportions between the “Hey, it’s a holiday! Stores should have sales! Let’s go have a picnic!” aspect, and the comparatively somber commemorative and remembrance aspect — the “memorial” part.

From maggiethecartoonist we have this Real Life Adventures, which takes a focus on the holiday picnic (or rather, barbecue) aspect.

On the Remembrance side of things, another regular reader suggests this one:

… and provides a reminder that it has previously been the subject of a CIDU post and discussion.

Joe Heller seems drawn to combining the two aspects in one editorial-type cartoon:

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, May 28th, 2023

From maggiethecartoonist:

Suggested by a reader who is fond of both Mutts and meta-comic jokes:

Thanks to Maggiethecartoonist for this GibbleGuts:

And Maggiethecartoonist also provides these two more Garfield entries — with brief comments for each!

“Farms must be fun.”

‘I cleaned out all the comic folders, and my computer still looks like a meatball!’

by multipleciduers

Saturday Morning OYs – May 27th, 2023

[Farcus for 22-May-2023 removed by WordPress.]

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.