Tag / Frazz

by EditorM

You thought we couldn’t do another collection of Oopsies, Quickies, We-can-improve-its, Semi-CIDUs, Mysteries, and flops? (12th Series)

Thanks to Dana K for this Today’s Szep. The main joke is easy enough: the mere unlikely existence of this rack and these categories of card message. But what is all that ancillary action supposed to be about? Do these two know each other? Or is the woman just a judgemental bystander? Is she saying something, or just standing there with her jaw dropping?

On the first hand, this seems to me an excellent job of working out a technical experiment in the art of cartooning. Color-coding the speech bubbles could represent an improvement on trying to aim the pointers with precision, or stretching them around, or finding a basis for making the comic multi-panel so the dialogue can be rearranged.

But OTOH, the content of the dialogue is miles away from being at all funny. And is not even folk-wise, in that pseudo-deep way Frazz is so fond of trying.

Here’s a FoxTrot sent in by Kilby for the Oopses list. He says there is a real-world chronology error in showing Alpha-bits cereal in a current cartoon scene. “Alphabits was taken off the market in 2006, and made only brief periodic re-appearances, before disappearing again a year ago (May 2021). [Wikipedia link] The reason I checked is that I was not able to find them the last time I visited Washington. It’s possibe that Bill Amend is writing his strips a whole year in advance, but I seriously doubt it.”

Kilby also presents a judgement dilemma. “When a cartoonist recycles an ancient joke (albeit with ‘improvements’), is it better (A) To admit the crime, or (B) Just pretend that nobody will notice how ancient the gag really is?”

(A)

(B)

A classic case of “Oops!” from Le Vieux Lapin. Oops, I forgot to draw a cloud that looks like a comma.

by EditorM

Convenience store day?!

Thanks to Chemgal for sending this in, and identifying two areas of doubt: 1) Though not a public designated observance, the 7-Eleven company, at least in Canada, has traditionally marked the 7/11 date with promotional giveaways. Is Mallett just unaware of this? 2) Wot th’heck do the last two panels mean? A mystery, in themselves and in their relationship to the first nine panellettes.

P.S. A Geezer identification question — Do you remember when 7 AM to 11 PM were in actual fact the hours for 7-Eleven stores?

by CIDU Bill

So it goes

tral

Kilby sent this to me asking whether Tralfamadorian is mainstream enough to be used here (leading to my question of what a “Tralfamadorian year” is)

(By the way, this post was actually supposed to go live before B.A.‘s question — but that’s easier said than done when you’ve lost track of days of the week. Maybe we’re all on Tralfamadorian time now)

And that led to whether Calvin and Hobbes had any business using “Weltanschauung” some years back.

And likewise the Washington Post’s recent use of a long German word (redundant, I know), without italics, which apparently both he and I noticed at the time although neither of us remembers what the word was.