by zbicyclist

Floating Gravestones

Lopes has an idea here, a link to either Native American burial grounds or elephant graveyards. But somehow I’m bothered by the elements. Stone tombstones floating? Who puts up the tombstones? Why would a ship pass through this unsafe area? Are whales Christian?

Elephant graveyards are said to be a myth, although when I visited Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania the guide showed us one. It was suspiciously close to a road, so I suspect this may have been where they would haul dead elephants, or maybe the result of poaching for ivory. Guides are, of course, always looking for a good story to tell the tourists.

Dead whales usually sink to the bottom, where they can become whale falls, an ecosystem supported by the dead whales. Since they are whale falls, does this mean whales tend to die in autumn?

But while we’re on the topic of graveyards, this non-CIDU was farther down in my comics feed:

by zbicyclist

Something Fishy

JMcAndrew sends this in: “I don’t ever eat them myself but is this an actual problem that people who do eat sardines encounter? Sardines have tiny bones so I don’t think people are using them for sandwiches either.”

Your editor remembers his father-in-law, of Norwegian ancestry, eating sardines on toast regularly. He lived to be 95 years old, so perhaps the calcium from all those sardine bones kept his bones strong. But I don’t recall problems with the sardines sliding out.

This also leads to a consideration of what can go well in a peanut butter sandwich. Jellies and jams for sure. Marmalade and honey are close relatives. Raisins are also a sweet touch. Peanut butter and dill pickle chips, or peanut butter and sauerkraut are good for a savory change of pace. I’ve never tried a peanut butter and sardine sandwich. Any other nominees?

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs – May 18, 2025

Usual John calls out to Geezers: “Any reference to Little Lulu, which stopped publication in 1984, is pretty much for geezers, but Dell did not publish the title after 1962 and John Stanley stopped working on it around 1959.”

This reminds me of a fine example of resume enhancement.

I was preparing to interview a candidate who was getting an advanced statistics degree from Northern Illinois University, a respectable institution. He had a link to his website, so I checked that before the interview, and saw that all across the top of the page he had a large picture of himself in front of the building housing the statistics department … at Northwestern, a very respectable institution.

When asked about that, he said, “I was on the faculty at Northwestern”. And, sure enough, he’d listed a faculty job at CTD, Northwestern. As it happens, I knew that CTD stood for the Center for Talent Development, a summer program for middle schoolers and high schoolers on the Northwestern campus. My daughter had attended that for some summers; the instructors were good, but not regular Northwestern faculty. In fact, my daughter was one of the instructors herself one summer. So, he’d actually taught a group of middle schoolers math during one summer, and had expanded this into being on the faculty at Northwestern.

He did not get a job offer.

by zbicyclist

Poorly drawn, or efficient?

They don’t draw them like this anymore. This is a Rex Morgan from 1955.

Or this Buz Sawyer from 1977:

Jef Mallet has some thoughts on the subject (July 10, 2021):

Stephan Pastis and I have been friends quite a while — both Frazz and Pearls Before Swine were in development at the same syndicate at the same time and launched one right after the other in 2001. Stephan occasionally teases me in his strip, mostly via Jef the Cyclist, and once in a great while I tease him back.

Pearls has been a great success. It’s well earned, and I’ve never been jealous of that success. But I have, occasionally, wondered why I was putting all that effort into posing, composing, positioning and shading my characters when, apparently, it’s not really all that necessary. Perhaps an experiment was in order.

So there you go. If nobody notices today, I can forgo the detail work. On the other hand, I’ve already learned from the experiment that it doesn’t save me that much time. It just saves me time spent shading, which then gets poured into other busy work. In other words, I have a problem, but it’s my problem and I might as well make the most of it.

Without shading:

Previous day:

and this recent one — which shows he kept shading (and brings us back into CIDU territory):

Terry Beatty’s 2025 Rex Morgan has a lot less detail than the 1955 version, but still a lot more detail than, say, Pearls Before Swine, as befits a strip that’s still a continuing story rather than a gag strip.