Okay, the extra panels at the left or top get called “throwaways” — but that doesn’t mean they need to be incomprehensible.
Especially when the main comic itself is confusing beyond repair.
P.S. Congratulations to Hilary Price as recipient of the 2024 Reuben Award as 2023 Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year!
Here is linked the official list of the Reuben Award winner and Divisional winners from the National Cartoonists Society.
(The meeting was this week and the announcement is dated yesterday 24 August 2024, but the awards are for 2023 publications and styled as “2023 Cartoonist of the Year” and similarly.)
An informative and nicely formatted list and display of examples, for nominees and winners, is at Daily Cartoonist.
Readers of CIDU will probably be familiar with work of —
Hilary B. Price, 2023 NCS Cartoonist of the Year (“Reuben Award”)
and Reuben Award nominees Darrin Bell, Will Henry, Dana Simpson, Daniel Clowes, and Mark Tatulli
Nick Galifianakis, winner for Magazine/Newspaper Illustration
Tauhid Bondia, winner for Newspaper Comic Strips, and nominees Hector Cantu & Carlos Castellanos (also split link, sorry) and Liniers
Wayno, winner for Newspaper Panels (plus link for WaynoVision), and nominees Nick Galifianakis and Dave Blazek
Unexpectedly, this was something of a minor CIDU, with comments disagreeing over which partner is actually the neatnik. (Also just a hint of Arlo speculation based on how the drawn legs bend at the knees.)
Nice to find the occasional clear-and-direct LOL from PMP!
For once we can let this stand as a LOL on its own, and not indulge a compulsion to track down the specific advice column it probably accompanied originally.
Mark H. notes “This Arlo is a Janis”.
Or maybe she’s just moving the drapes to give him a better view of the moon. Or of …
Thanks to both Darren and Phred who sent this one in, as mostly LOL but with enough of a factual background question to make it almost a CIDU. Why is it a matter for sticklers?
P.S. It turns out this comic was discussed at Comic Strip of the Day; but we ran across that after this post was already prepared.
Not really a pun, but appears in this week’s OY list by courtesy of being about matters of terminology-variation.
Why not a day to celebrate strangers?
Where would we be without strangers? Strangers grow our food. Strangers in factories make stuff we need. Strangers make important decisions for us, like whether we get into our first-choice college, or whether we get audited by the IRS.
Let’s face it. In the aggregate, strangers are more important to us than friends.
But speaking of obscure non-holidays:
Did we post this before?
Adding today’s Arlo and Janis as a late entry:
Still there is some unclarity to the customer’s identity, and why they would order this outfit.
Here are two more instances of creative translation in “Macanudo”.
The Spanish dialog means: “I wish the leaves had eyes.” – “Ha ha ha! The things you say!“
In both cases the gag is a simple (auditory) pun: in English twofold on “leave(s)” (noun/verb); in Spanish threefold on “ojalá“=”wish”, “hojas“=”leaves”, and “ojos“=”eyes” (one verb and two nouns; all three words sound very similar).
In this second case the difference between the two language versions is more extreme:
In Spanish: “Do you like it when I call you a lunatic?” – “Yup.“
Perhaps the translator did not trust English-speaking readers to recognize the “lunar” etymology of “lunatic”, or maybe she simply loved the song lyrics more.
P.S. Several months ago I looked up the meaning of the name “macanudo“, discovering that it meant “a person or thing considered admirable or excellent because of its positive qualities“. Besides being an eminently appropriate name for the comic strip, this also explains why it is the name of a cigar brand. I was in Copenhagen (on vacation) just a few days before I created this post, and just happened to run into this shop:
So this is a CIDU-Oy.
And BillR, calling it “Almost a CIDU”, says “This took longer than it should’ve. But it came to me out of nowhere an hour after I saw it while I was driving to the grocery store.”
Well, maybe this?
The Democratic convention starts today, in Chicago. CIDU doesn’t deal with current politics, but 1968 is a long time ago, so let’s revisit some of the cartoons done around the time of that raucous Chicago convention.
A poster, not a cartoon:
This is close to a CIDU, as there doesn’t seem to be a single best / obvious answer to the question.
Tim Harrod sends this in: “Whether you laugh or not, Jim Davis is historically reliable at coming up with a punchline. But here, the joke is apparently that the eggs are really spicy… and a lot of people ordered them. It could have been a scheme to sell a lot of milk, but then Irma should have more of a sly grin in the last panel.”
The gag seems straightforward, but Tim’s right: she should have a sly, knowing grin on her face.
On Monday, will we see Irma’s lasagna?
Probably more of an Awww than strictly an LOL.
Comics I Don't Understand 