by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, August 25th, 2024

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.

by zbicyclist

Heads Up! Tomorrow is Stranger’s Day

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:

by Kilby

Sometimes “translation” means moving to a different place

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:

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, August 18th, 2024

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.

by Kilby

Astronomical Golfing Errors

Jack Applin submitted this B.C. strip as a CIDU, noting that “Grog hit the ball to … Saturn? Let’s ignore the [80 minute] light speed delay [one way!]. What is that film around the planet and rings? Atmosphere? But Saturn is a GAS GIANT — all that we see is atmosphere inside the rings!“

The obvious astronomical destination would have been a black hole, but that would have been impossible to convey to readers, and the closest known black hole is 1500 light years away.

My guess is that Mason chose Saturn because it is the only planet that could possibly be recognized in comic strip resolution. Most papers that still print daily comics do so in monochrome, which could seriously deteriorate the carefully shaded images in the first three panels.

P.S. Just a week later, a very similar gag appeared in The Wizard of Id:

Both strips have a long history of using golf gags, but a little more temporal separation between these two might have been advisable.