He meant to order an inflatable doll, but received an inflatable bed of nails.
P.S. A couple days later, this character and that prop re-appear; but decidedly not funny :-( .
BTW, Gocomics gives this feature filenames that look like loesp230927.jpg, clueing us that at some point they were considering it to be Life On Earth in Spanish. (The same artist does the Life on Earth comic.)
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.)
So does the fact that the statue is of Lenin mean anything here, or is it just a too-large ugly statue that could be of anyone? (Like Alice wanting a stone fountain for the backyard) Seems odd that he would want a statue of Lenin or that his wife is only mildly annoyed with the purchase. Or is this a name thing? Len likes a statue of someone named Len(in)? I don’t get it.
When I got Darren’s email, I almost immediately recognized his allusion to “Alice wanting a stone fountain for the backyard” as referencing a multi-strip story in Cul de Sac, which I had recently seen. But I couldn’t find it in recent GoComics reprints of the CdS archive. Anyhow, the CIDU advisers crew responded to my inquiry in our Random Comments thread, and identified the early appearance of the story starting around https://www.gocomics.com/culdesac/2009/12/02 and including for example this one:
Thanks to Kilby, who saw the rerun Cul de Sac, was reminded of the recent Jesus and Mo, and was led to ask Jesus reads “Cul de Sac”?
If you enjoy Jesus and Mo?, then for some science?, and a lot of opinion?, you might enjoy the Why Evolution is True blog from retired University of Chicago Professor Jerry Coyne?, who often prints in the blog fresh Jesus and Mo strips he receives from them?
P.S. This ginger guy is Mo? He’s a big help with email?
My attempt to look up whether the first two panels have the accurate tartans for those clans was hampered by starting from a position of zero knowledge, and by what turned out to be a huge set of variants for any name. However, most samples of Sinclair Modern seem to have a lot more red than in the comic. Shrug. Anyway, the pun is in panel 3, and is pretty good.
It’s not uncommon for these two guys to end a conversation with that mutual exchange of “What?”. And actually I’m generally quite content with that and wouldn’t demand more punchline delivery.
When I first heard about a State of the Union speech I figured it must be to announce an award, and wondered if Florida had a chance.
Ah, so young to be falling into the essence of Meta!
And thanks to Shamie F who sent it in and says: “I think it has something to do with a flying cup looking for a flying saucer. If that’s the whole point then OY! I’m thinking I must be missing something though.” We think the default tag here would be LOL moreso than OY (a flying saucer is called that just because of resemblance to an ordinary saucer), but how does the gang weigh in on the “is that all there is?” factor?
Here’s one from BillR:
Very smart to use Peter’s name – the others are more easily identifiable.
But on the griping side of things, the wolf I think did not emerge a winner from any of their encounters. Maybe it depends on versions of the stories.
Thanks to Michelle for this LOL bit of pained irony:
Comics I Don't Understand 