Saturday Morning Oys – July 16th, 2022

I think this counts as a pun, even without doing a pun-joke.

The above sent by Andréa, who particularly notes Tom Waits getting mentioned, saying “Never thought I’d see HIM in a comic – made my day!”. And one of your editors had the pleasure of taking a couple classes from Professor Lance Rips, who liked to point out that his name constitutes a complete sentence.

Meant to post this earlier.

And the award for the best re-use of old toy parts goes to …

I learned the word prodigal in the context of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and thought it meant something like all the characteristics of the guy in the story – wandering, absent, returning after a long absence and acting all entitled, etc, all packaged in that one word. Only much later did I start seeing contexts that wouldn’t support all of that meaning, and learned the base sense spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant.

And then discovered that was what it meant in the Parable, too. But there had not been enough help from the context to make that choice clear! And this fits the philosopher’s point that, if your informant points to a rabbit and says gavagai, maybe they are telling you the word means rabbit — but maybe it means finger.

Why do you ask?

Why indeed? A friend and sometime-lurker sent me this, suggesting it for CIDU, and I have to agree. Maybe there’s something about philately?

Mitch suggests that there may be a joke in the way the therapist is probing for something the guy is leaving out–perhaps his hairpiece is also something he thinks the wife criticizes too much. He also asked: Why does the diploma alternate between an MA and a PhD? What is the significance of the therapist doodling instead of making notes?

Formulaic CIDU (bonus)

Well, I don’t think he was just scribbling. It’s too convincing.

Unlikely that it is a vector-graphics equation for the lines and filled areas that constitute the smiley face. Right?

But if mostly a blur-retrace of something real, then what in particular? An elaboration or derivation of part of Maxwell? [Though that would work better for the “Let There Be Light” referenced in the GoComics comments.] Something from General Relativity? Thermodynamics? We are happy because the Sun keeps shining?

Are there gas stations in heaven?

Boise Ed: “Taking the wings seems to imply accepting that you’re dead. The free Camaro leaves me with no idea at all.”

Which reminds me of something I’ve thought about: the religious concept of eternity. Christians can imagine heaven as a place, but not a real place. It sits outside the dimensions of length, width, and depth. So why shouldn’t it sit outside the realm of time, as well?

Who comes off better?

Who comes off better here, Lila or Annie?

Does Lila simply not follow the more technical description, or is she saying “but that’s not how to think of it, at a personal level”? I’m not sure we credit her with that maturity though.

BTW, I think the adoption has already officially gone thru at this point in the cycle, but it’s still more reasonable for Lila to say “my dad” in the first panel than try to use “your granddad”.

Holodeck??

(This is half of a Sunday Cornered, using only one of the two separate joke panels.)

Underlying this is a pretty standard modern-office joke — make yourself indispensable and they will go to lengths to bother you on your off-time.

But how are they doing it? Is this just an arty juxtaposition of two well-separated scenes? Or are they linking by video call, so that he can demonstrate the technique, for someone back at the ranch to execute? Or have they borrowed a transporter from a friendly Star Trek franchise; or using a drone to deliver and retrieve the printer and materials to his lake? What is that vertical line? Or are vacations now required to be taken in-office, courtesy of a crack art and special effects department? Or, indeed, by holodeck?

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, July 10th, 2022

Two Andertoons for the price of one.

Well that’s getting down to the point!

Nice to see the secondary characters getting featured on their own.

Here’s that “LOL-Yikes! (horror)” you saw category-tagged and wondered about.

Actually I think this is making a pretty deep point about the relativity of relativity.

Saturday Morning Oys – July 9th, 2022

Thanks to Dale Eltoft for sending in the second Diamond Lil in the pair below. “This follows from the day before but I don’t know if that’s a necessary setup.” On that recommendation we’re also including the set-up one first, though it isn’t in itself an OY.

(In a followup, they make it clear that you better say it in the pun way or there is no joke left!)

I’m in an online class that’s reading Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, and whenever I run into an invisibility-themed cartoon I have the impulse to upload it to the class discussion board. But that would be unwise.

Oy! this is so labored of a pun — but sometimes you just have to honor that labor! (Also interesting how there had to be a switch of syntactic role of me in the last panel.)

Added Thursday – This cartoon was the main topic of an Arnold Zwicky post on his blog, which says a lot more than my remark above on the parsing of the punned title in the last panel; and also brings up Stephan Pastis as a mainstay of this genre.

A multi-OY from Cat and Girl, with e3xtras from meme-land.