It’s very confusing how to take these Throwback comics. There is indeed a substantial history of the actual Working Daze comic strip, with different artists, and how they changed the look and how the public reacted to it. So sometimes the Throwback will realistically review some part of that.
But other directions for the Throwback feature sometimes strike me as sheer fabulism. They trace it back to different writers as well as artists, different publishers or syndicators, also even different titles for predecessor strips. And with a straight face go back to very early 20th Century. .. And yet try to say “This was what Roy was like then” or “This guy became Jay at this point” with the oddest of non-resemblances.
So I was really sus, but think we can tentatively credit the story about Zany Zoo.
I remember running into a well-meaning person who heard the linguistics lecturer use the term “natural language” and tried to object that no language or dialect is actually more natural — that is, “better” in some way, or more suited to learning — than any other. Which is something that audience would not disagree with, in general, among the set of languages they were discussing. (Which of course, were just those natural languages.)
But of course there are several ways some communication system or notation system can be called a language but is not a natural language. Roy’s list includes two major types, and misses a couple other categories. (But we don’t get to hear if he has command of other natural languages.)
Here’s an amusing talk I ran across recently, which may be fun for those with either practical programming experience in a few different computer languages or anyhow a reading/browsing acquaintance with them.
Maybe it’s a genuine CIDU? But I think that punch line is all there is.
I think we all can sympathize with Duane’s motivations for his … little prank. And that’s the main joke, which is not in need of explication; so this isn’t quite a CIDU. But if we wanted to get into it a little, we could ask whether he’s getting revenge more on the kid or on the mom. And at the practical level, what does it mean that he still has the barber’s customer-apron as he’s leaving?
I guess this Working Daze fits an offshoot of the “CIDU-Quickie” category, where the joke is utterly incomprehensible until you are shown (or realize you already know) an instance of something-that’s-going-around, and then that entirely exhausts the mystery.
Cartoons with Veterans relevance that we recently ran across, or that CIDU Bill had saved to the site’s media library with a note for possible Veterans Day add-on use.
These two we noticed on sequential days in Maria’s Day. Since that strip is on a reruns cycle at GoComics, the actual dates of the recent appearance were 31 August and 01 September, but apparently the original publication was on 10 and 11 November of some year.
BUT that doesn’t mean only the namesake can discuss the junk drawer!
Okay, okay, not really a LOL. And certainly not an Ewwww. Just more like …. an Awwww?
Bliss and Martin do a nice job with the last-second twist:
From Dave Berg, who sent it in as CIDU. There is potentially a fairly direct explanation, however (reserved for now — we’ll see if you’all agree). But it still leaves this a good, ironic, chuckle.