Ben and His Marks

ben marks

Kilby writes: This is another one of CIDU Bill’s old drafts from 2019. The reference was so obscure that it might have been suitable for the authors to include their running gag with “Horace”, except that there would not have been enough space for that in a daily strip. (For those interested in background information, most of the sources that I was able to find listed the name as “Benjamin Marks“).

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, January 7th, 2024

The holidays are done, but the cartoons are not all done with Xmas and NYear LOLs!


LOL-Ewww did you say?



Does Eric Scott’s drawing style sometimes seem to have a Thurber feel?


This Santino is an almost-CIDU: commenters on his page talk about getting it only after pausing and looking at it another way, or filling in their literary knowledge.



Once upon a time (it was December, actually) Sandra sent this in, and noted it could be a LOL-semi-CIDU as it’s not first-glance obvious what’s going on. 

Actually, the editors’ feeling of confidence in one explanation faded upon discussion. Is this cat-behavior being actively performed by an animated cat-statue? Or is it a static statue of characteristic cat-behavior? 

Either way, it’s the sort of thing cat people regard with loving exasperation. The great filmmaker Agnès Varda felt like putting her cat on a monument, and did so in her short Le Lion Volatil (actuality on left, modification on right):


And as Aaron notes when sending this next one in, Falco really wants to say something about this gap-week.



Gifts from the Four Wise(?) Men

Your editors are greeting today’s holiday with some favorite comics, some Christmassy, some not. Enjoy!


Here’s one for the great CIDU cat-admiration tradition!








Seems like the reindeer might take a lichen to an in-flight snack, also.





Probably just cartoon physics

It doesn’t seem like that axe would fit in that crate, does it? The stump and basket, maybe–though after UPS rolls it around the back of the truck several times, I doubt the basket would be in that good condition.

ObAnecdote: I have nothing against UPS, but I worked with a woman who hated them with a passion, and with justification: they lost her bridesmaids’ dresses. All of them. Forever. Never reappeared. I’d hear her in the next cubicle calling a company and trying to find some OTHER way of shipping their item, and cancelling the order if they had no choices except UPS. Still makes me laugh.

P.S. Yes, this post is late. Y’all are all entitled to a full refund of your CIDU membership fees.

What’s age got to do with it?

Both Dirk the Daring and Targuman independently sent this one in, from Barney & Clyde last Monday.

“I don’t get and I don’t think anybody commenting on it gets it either. I follow the strip, and I read the strips that led up to this and I still don’t get it,” says one of our spotters. Well, here are those previous strips (from the preceding Friday and Saturday):

And as the other spotter puts it, “What does his age have to do with it? If we take today’s strip (Wed.) the only thing is perhaps ‘are we too young to date?’ Maybe.” Here is that follow-up from Wednesday (which is “today” at the time of setting up this post):

P.S. And one more strip on this same plot line:

Saturday Morning OYs – May 20th, 2023




And another Rubes, suggested by Maggiethecartoonist :





Should I feel sheepish posting a second comic on herding?


M is for the Many

With considerable forethought, Chemgal sent this in when it appeared, last July!

There is a motherlode of Mothers Day cartoons from Foxtrot collected at their website, of which we will sample just a couple.

This first one was featured by Bill on CIDU in 2018:

This “Breakfast in Bedlam” strip seems to be from 2001:


MD gifts funded by allowance, a theme for Fox Trot, also features here in Calvin, 1989:



This resurfaced in this Saturday’s Counterpoint mailing, not where I’m used to seeing B&C.