I did literally LOL! But filing it with the OYs for the word play.
Okay, the oldest phonetic exchange on the books; but they do something new with it.
Now the rainman gave me two cures
Then he said, “Jump right in”
The one was Texas medicine
The other was just railroad gin
An’ like a fool I mixed them
An’ it strangled up my mind
An’ now people just get uglier
An’ I have no sense of time
Writing prompt: That’s a *winch*. Why is that a better pun than a *wrench* would have been?
Republishing this post, so that the site front page will have some comics, instead of the discussions of the domain name difficulties. But an update on those has been posted to
And still from Le Vieux Lapin, and for that matter still about bees:
Le Vieux Lapin still on a roll!
This linked (not copied nor link-embedded) Far Side provides an explanation for one of the great Netherlands floods. Link probably not valid after 2021/12/08.
Syndicated cartoon comic panel called off the mark cartoons created by Mark Parisi Atlantic Feature Syndicate dba Mark Parisi, 16 Slayton Road, Melrose, MA 02176-4222+1 (781) 665-4442, markparisi@aol.com
This Sheldon was sent in by Andréa, who asks “Remember the [long ago] discussion of these?”. Maybe not in specifics, but the CIDU crew should be able to make short work of a simple issue like the role of uniqueness and originality in the arts!
A Far Side on the theme of “Could it get any worse?”:
These are non-CIDUs or semi–CIDUs, where the joke or main point isn’t seriously in doubt, but some specifics of the writing or artwork seem somewhat off, or incomplete, or in need of explanation or correction. (Yet we don’t want to get into the territory of mockery or purely complaining.)
This first one is from Chak who calls it an Oops, and comments “The oopsies I’m thinking of are about well-drawn comics that slipped up”. In this Fastrack, the custom paperclip seems to change position without physical cause.:
Here was a BetweenFriends that seems to be illustrating a familiar saying with a situation that shows something different. In the picture, isn’t it more someone who has gone down and may not come back up?
The Far Side
We have been getting plenty of submissions or suggestions for The Far Side cartoons by Gary Larson, both classic and recent, some scanned from books and some copied off the 2019-established web site. Some suggestions were meant as classic solo-CIDU posts, but others might fit into one of these quasi-CIDU categories.
But there’s a big problem, that Larson has made a public point of his wish to not have his cartoons reprinted without permission and not under his control. There are people who doubt that this would have legal force if he tried to enforce it; but it doesn’t seem entirely right to defy the wishes of someone whose work we appreciate and want to enjoy.
So generally we have been responding to submissions and suggestions with a reminder of those constraints.
But thinking about Internet standards, short of copying and reposting something, and short also of the middle ground of embedding something by link, there is the fundamental WWW action of linking. That is well established as not infringing anything.
It’s also pretty inconvenient! Hard to have informed discussion threads when the item being commented on is not visible in the same window or tab! Still, it’s not beyond our abilities, CIDUers.
Sent in by Findus as an artwork/layout question rather than overall CIDU, this linked Far Side cartoon raises for them the question “what’s with the lovingly executed reflection in the mirror that is not a ‚mirror image‘? Is this intentional?”
And from Brian R we have this linked Far Side cartoon, which he suggested as a CIDU – but then understood fine the next day!
There actually is a certain amount of good sense to the now-classic bit about tech support asking “Have you tried turning it off and then on again?” as made famous by “The IT Crowd”. Now here in Lard’s World Peace Tips, it is cited in the wrong order. Is that the joke? Or was it accidental? Or intentional but supposed to be meaningful here, where the kite in the picture seems to be “off” since it is not flying, so is poised to be turned on, i.e., launched? My gosh that was long-winded!
Down the Garden Path Dept. Can you convince me this Loose Parts does not at all involve people getting squeaky voices from inhaling Helium?