Kilby writes: When Bill Bickel suddenly passed away three years ago, he left a very large collection of incomplete “draft” posts in progress. Some of these were duplicate copies of comics that did get posted, and others were just empty placeholders, but a number of these drafts still contain comics that are worth posting, if for no other reason than simply for the nostalgia of remembering Bill’s dedication to the CIDU website. I don’t want to release all of these old drafts in a flood, so expect to see them only on an intermittent basis (in addition to Bill’s traditional “evergreens” that get reposted every year).
I see Three Little Pigs and a Big Bad Wolf, and perhaps Mother Goose playing third, and Jack Sprat is up to bat (hey, a rhyme!)–but what does that have to do with baseball? Why are the cat, fiddle, dish, spoon, and cow in the dugout?? Who’s that at shortstop???
Has Downton Abbey replaced Upstairs, Downstairs in the hearts and minds of Retro-Anglophiles? Well, not this canine one! …
However, I don’t remember it well enough to know the reasons for Snoopy’s delight at the idea of staying with Georgina. Was she the secretary that the widower eventually married? Or the sort of niece-in-law-once-removed?
“Didn’t we just have a different cartoon with an alligator at the dentists?” “Maybe, but I thought that was a crocodile.” Whatever! It was Monday’s CIDU:
Remember when they would say El Greco painted tall narrow figures because of his astigmatism?
Posted to Facebook group “Unappreciated Puns” by user Kerriann O’Sullivan with message “Happy Monday from the Southern Hemisphere “, so I was sort of expecting to have to work out a joke based on Australian accent or usage. But no, as it turns out; this seems to work out okay in General American.
Thanks to jjmcgaffey for suggesting Rae the Doe, and
for calling this “a kerning pun!” to assist anyone who may find it puzzling.
And an OY-semi-CIDU from Maggiethecartoonist:
This song is in that peculiar category of musical quasi-familiarity, where I became acquainted with a piece from its use in advertising, or as a television theme song, that I probably never would have run into otherwise. “New Soul” by Yael Naim. “You’ve Got Time” by Regina Spektor.“One Week” by The Barenaked Ladies (this one I might have found otherwise). “Flower Duet from Lakmé” by Léo Delibes (this one I surely would have run into sooner or later, but did encounter first in the British Airways ads). Most of those I put in a playlist at some point or even bought further work from the same artist ; but “Mister Roboto” always remained for me just “that song from one of those car commercials” until last week, when this cartoon appeared and I wanted to verify the idea suggested by the pun. (BTW, the car brand turns out to have been VW, and the sketch uses comic actor Tony Hale.)
Show of hands, did the term “body shop” make you think of lotions and scents, or crumpled fenders?
A couple of maggiethecartoonist suggestions:
When BillR sent this one in, we all racked our brains for common sayings, or notable events, or famous stories, involving tomatoes and lemons …
… but then it dawned on us that there is a traditional remark about comparisons, and it involves apples and oranges. So this could be a joke about literalizing that idiomatic remark, thrown into confusion by a colorist’s error! (Subsequently we found it discussed at the Comic Strip of the Day site, and there also attributed to colorist error.)
Here’s one spotted by Usual John at Comics Kingdom. It feels eerily like something we just recently saw, and discussed, with remarks about how it could stand in for a motto for CIDU. But then again, there’s today’s date, 5-31, right there in the panel; which makes it less likely this could actually be an oldie that CK happened to replay today.
Update! We put the above questions to an expert archivalist, who came thru with answers!
First of all, yes this was a rerun; but because the previous Comics Kingdom appearance was exactly a year earlier, on 2022-05-31, the date “5-31” embedded in the artwork for panel 3 does not mean this comic was actually new this week; nor does it make that date a paste-over job. (Though the syndication copyright notice running vertically between panels 1 and 2 does have the current year inserted.)
Comics I Don't Understand 