It’s certainly true that in most proscenium-style auditoriums, the first few rows are not the most coveted, for a variety of reasons but mostly related to not being able to see up and over the front of the stage, hence not really getting the stage layout or being able to see the actors when they are upstage (or the different instruments, in a musical context). See for example the Chicago Symphony Center seating charts below, with pricing strata color-coded.
But in this particular instance, is there more going on? Are the other attendees holding their program booklets, or are those some kind of splash shields? Does the “Extreme” name and the debris in front of the curtain indicate that there has been stuff flying around? So, the front row would be the most vulnerable of all?
So this one is the Yeti? And it lives in a Crane Game booth? And this kid is the first one to notice it there? And it knows about iPads, but mostly as distractions for kids?
Jan’s dating adventure continues. This seems to use a pun on an unspoken characterization.
And it is rather cute to think about how the cymbals can be incorporated into a password. Probably no more annoying than when the form has no way of communicating the legal symbols it will accept to your secure-random-password generator.
From Le Vieux Lapin, who desisted from his not-understanding once he learned how the game is played! However, there does remain a non-obvious aspect, which your editors did not see for quite a while, and which is mainly the joke!
These are non-CIDUs or semi–CIDUs, where the joke or main point isn’t seriously in doubt, but some specifics of the writing or artwork seem somewhat off, or incomplete, or in need of explanation or correction. (Yet we don’t want to get into the territory of mockery or purely complaining.)
This first one is from Chak who calls it an Oops, and comments “The oopsies I’m thinking of are about well-drawn comics that slipped up”. In this Fastrack, the custom paperclip seems to change position without physical cause.:
Here was a BetweenFriends that seems to be illustrating a familiar saying with a situation that shows something different. In the picture, isn’t it more someone who has gone down and may not come back up?
The Far Side
We have been getting plenty of submissions or suggestions for The Far Side cartoons by Gary Larson, both classic and recent, some scanned from books and some copied off the 2019-established web site. Some suggestions were meant as classic solo-CIDU posts, but others might fit into one of these quasi-CIDU categories.
But there’s a big problem, that Larson has made a public point of his wish to not have his cartoons reprinted without permission and not under his control. There are people who doubt that this would have legal force if he tried to enforce it; but it doesn’t seem entirely right to defy the wishes of someone whose work we appreciate and want to enjoy.
So generally we have been responding to submissions and suggestions with a reminder of those constraints.
But thinking about Internet standards, short of copying and reposting something, and short also of the middle ground of embedding something by link, there is the fundamental WWW action of linking. That is well established as not infringing anything.
It’s also pretty inconvenient! Hard to have informed discussion threads when the item being commented on is not visible in the same window or tab! Still, it’s not beyond our abilities, CIDUers.
Sent in by Findus as an artwork/layout question rather than overall CIDU, this linked Far Side cartoon raises for them the question “what’s with the lovingly executed reflection in the mirror that is not a ‚mirror image‘? Is this intentional?”
And from Brian R we have this linked Far Side cartoon, which he suggested as a CIDU – but then understood fine the next day!
There actually is a certain amount of good sense to the now-classic bit about tech support asking “Have you tried turning it off and then on again?” as made famous by “The IT Crowd”. Now here in Lard’s World Peace Tips, it is cited in the wrong order. Is that the joke? Or was it accidental? Or intentional but supposed to be meaningful here, where the kite in the picture seems to be “off” since it is not flying, so is poised to be turned on, i.e., launched? My gosh that was long-winded!
Down the Garden Path Dept. Can you convince me this Loose Parts does not at all involve people getting squeaky voices from inhaling Helium?
I’ve seen scenes like this in movies, and it does seem sensible when taking a kid on the transit to have an emergency meet-up plan.
But some questions:
— Can our New Yorkers, or anyone familiar with the subways there, comment on whether the described trains or routes, and geography, make at least approximate sense? Not so much “Is it a wise plan for these people?” as I figure it is not, but things like whether there is a station called “Eastern Parkway” and the Brooklyn Museum is right by their doorstep..
— And for CIDUers anywhere, is the joke in the complexity of the plan? Is the “under 3” bit because he’s still thinking about diiscounted admission to the museum, or because it would help with the rescue?
Bonus riddle: “My friend Gloria threw up on the subway on Monday”. What life-lesson familiar saying cab we take from that?
Comics I Don't Understand 