by EditorM

Tuna breath

Texts from Mittens is almost always an SMS-based texting conversation between a cat and his owner (or “Mom”, occasionally “Mama”), in a layout imitating display on a phone screen. Never a drawing or other image of the kind we associate with comics.

Sometimes a different character gets in the conversation. I just today looked at the Characters tab on GoComics, which sort of answers a couple of my long-standing questions. But there are no answers anywhere to fundamental questions or consistent treatment of his unusual abilities (does he tap out messages with a paw on a physical phone, or send them via mental/physical magic connection?), his contact list, his mix of knowledge and ignorance about the human world. Oh never mind, it’s all just for cat people to read and indulgently sigh in recognition. He gets a little shirty but loves his Mom, okay?

In this one, of course Mittens likes tuna smells. But is Mom taking that into account? Or is she thinking by habit of how tuna breath would affect human companions and coworkers?

by EditorM

Originally “chalk pencil”

Thanks to Carl Fink for sending this in. He says “I do understand the joke, but …” and then details ways he can’t understand how such bad drawing can pass itself off as professional cartooning.

Meanwhile, the usual gang of idiot at CIDU HQ Central has to confess that I don’t completely understand the joke. Is it a tradition in this family that “our mealtimes will be like going out to a nice restaurant”? Does the dad’s remark to what Carl calls “the monstrosity” daughter presuppose something like that?

by EditorM

A chloral? A bromide? A Mickey Finn? A bone in her teeth? A switch of a swatch?

Our first A&J is from Mark M, who asks “Why does she feel that way at 3 o’clock?  Is this an example of an overreaction as CIDU Bill used to talk about?”

Possibly the discussion of overreaction Mark is thinking of included this thread.

(For a quick factual overview of “sleeping pills”, here is a web excerpt from a book by Wallace B. Mendelson, MD.)

And Jack Applin sent in another puzzling A&J. He says: “I do not understand this Arlo & Janis. Arlo speaks of the expression bone in her teeth, explaining how it comes from the bow wave of a fast-moving boat. OK, sure. However, the way the he says it implies that this is a standard expression, used in other contexts. “

“I might say Do you know where the expression ‘read the riot act’ came from?, because people use that without reference to the 1714 act of the Parliament of Great Britain, e.g., when their mother caught them coming home late.. Who says bone in her teeth without referring to a bow wave?”

by EditorM

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, October 3rd, 2021

under the remaining five red baidagko

The last few weeks I’ve felt that Wrong Hands has been a bit off their best form. But this one seems a good case of returning to their former standard.

So here is another Wrong Hands, sent in by Philip, who notes that as an Oy it would be tripartite. (Have we seen this one before?)

I have never sat down on a cat …. that did not immediately make the situation known! :-)

Six of one, half-dozen of the other, sent by Phil Smith III

(Also adding in another Condron as he was unfamiliar to me.)

by EditorM

Saturday Morning Oys – October 2nd, 2021

Arrgh, they just missed the chance to pun it off against serialism, the academic successor to atonal or twelve-tone music as a body of theory and compositional practice. To boot, cerealism and serialism are pronounced identically, while surrealism is distinguishable! Well OY to that, or indeed ARRRGH!

This time the squirrel does have something to say — and he’s clearly wrong.

Here’s an Oy-Ewww. Wait, do I know the actual etymology? And how’s about “steak tartare”?

by EditorM

Bonus: Estamos texting todo el tiempo

(Or as Google Translate would put it: Nosotros estamos enviando mensajes de texto todo el tiempo.)

Our recent foray into the Baldo translation mysteries included an interesting subthread on whether the Spanish seemed to reflect any particular national-origin variety of the language (or since the setting is in the U.S. , there might be contemporary U.S.-regional varieties at play ) , or rather a textbook or generic Western Hemisphere compromise variety of the language. Also in question was “official, standard” language versus slang and colloquial.

Last week’s and this week’s strips provide a wealth of material bearing on those issues. The teen characters are doing a lot of texting, so we get to see the handling of such matters as: standard texting abbreviations; spontaneous abbreviations or “shorthand”; accidental typos, and bad autocorrect and autocomplete insertions; and intrusion of English terms instead of “official” Spanish. Thus for OMG they stick with OMG in the Spanish context, though I think elsewhere I’ve seen DM (for Dios mío not in this case Direct Message); and “texting” in both English and Spanish versions.

(Two wordless strips depict a deepening of the romantic jealousy crisis.)

(For anyone paying close attention to the dates, there were strips over the weekend that were not part of this series.)