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.
Back in May, Mark H. wrote that “This [Shoe] caught me completely off guard“. Perhaps it will do so again in August?
Wait a minute! Doesn’t the “you had me at” trope use something the other party said *early* in their dialogue turn? Here’s the same comic in single-panel format. These get published under the name “Reply All Lite” and have become re-arrangements (sometimes radical) of the same day’s horizontal-format and usually multi-panel strip. The single-panel “Lite” series used to be somewhat more separate, with a less verbatim relationship to the strip version. The new approach strikes me as sensible. Note that it pretty much coincides with her move to distribution via Counterpoint.
Nope, I’m not sure I would have recognized the title characters if they weren’t named.
And it’s remarkable that they were able to hire domestic services from Amazon even way back then!
You ever think — or find yourself actually writing a comment — that the comic we’re seeing maybe has a point or makes a joke, or maybe doesn’t really, but in any case would be much better off if only some aspect were changed?
We just have to agree with some commenters on the GoComics appearance of this panel in October 2023 that getting a joke from this would seem to require knowing which of the gorillas ordered the virgin daiquiri. Is it the one facing us from the far end of the banquette and looking (maybe) a little abashed? Or could it have worked better with one gorilla and three humans? Or how about …
One original commenter said The joke isn’t about which ordered it – the joke is that the virgin one is simply a banana…. Does that help? Or does it just emphasize that *all* of them would probably want the plain banana?
Okay, sure, the little one is the “sub” woofer because it’s subordinate. I guess. — But, but … When it comes to actual acoustic speakers (where the terminology originated), a sub woofer produces even lower pitches than a woofer, and therefore needs to be larger. — Okay, that might fix the technicality, but it would ruin the joke. – Nah, it would be funnier that way, with the facts working. – Nah, it would be stupid that way. Everybody would say, “But what’s the joke?”
And what do mice know or care, about an MRI scan? Ah, but if it were about CAT scans, then we would understand the issue!
These critters cannot be newly placed around the tree trunks, as shown, but must have had a newly planted small tree grow up within the loop. But Ed got hold of some by just lifting them off a still-immature tree, or perhaps felling a small tree. Monster!
Or do you have some kind of better explanation for this scene?
Okay, do you agree this belongs in the LOLs? Or would you put it in OY, because the patient’s mishearing error depended on a near-miss similarity of sound between urine and hearing?
Thanks to Chak for this LOL from the Chuckle Bros:
When the New Yorker website has an outage, you see this message.
Hey, just a minute there! Are you saying there’s something wrong with that? It strikes me as an eminently reasonable basis for a preference.
Here is a sampler from recent episodes of an Australian strip that is new on our radar, Insanity Streak by Tony Lopes.
We’re all still chuckling over the Sturm und Drang inboxes; but Darren also raises a question whether there is some sort of art trickery going on — like a different face showing up if you invert the picture. Well, it doesn’t seem to be exactly that; but maybe something similar?
This remains a semi-CIDU, as most of the allusions are obscure to an outsider; yet the jokes are clear enough once the basic point is caught that this depends on something about the ninja turtles.
Some months ago CIDU was asked to remove all the Far Side comics from our site, and we did so.
It’s their intellectual property, and they are within their rights. Certainly there are many social media sites trying to attract attention with Far Side cartoons, and it must be like Whack-A-Mole to reign those in. Still, they are missed, and Dave Whamond’s comic here is a reminder to check out the legit site for old and new work from Larson: https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff
CIDU QUEUE REMINDER
As always — but it needs saying again now and then — we like to think of this as a reader-participation site, and not just for your invaluable (or anyhow amusing) comments, but for suggestions of comics to run and discuss.
Please share your specific suggestions of panels or strips, in CIDU, LOL, and OY categories, either by direct email to
For a comic strip not generally* done in “realistic style”, this shows a lot of detail to convincingly set the scene!
[*] Though they occasionally go hyper-realistic by using a photo panel!
Suggested by Dirk the Daring, who notes “Me thinks David Sipress has never left the city. The cow and pig in the background aren’t too bad, but up front we seem to have a cow with pig nose and maybe a pig with a cow tail. Or maybe not.
The gag itself is pretty good though.”
As a commenter at GoComics hints, that Mr. Wilson better not be Dennis Mitchell’s neighbor!
Comics I Don't Understand 