Tag / Johnny Hart

by zbicyclist

Fourth Wall Fun

By one definition, “4th wall comic refers to a comic book where characters become aware of their own fictional existence and address the audience directly. This concept, known as the Fourth Wall, separates the characters from the readers, allowing them to comment on the narrative and its limitations.” By that definition, not all of these fit. In some of these, it’s that the cartoonist lets us acknowledge the cartoonist’s existence, while the characters remain unaware. Is there a separate term that should be used for that?

by phsiii

It’s…magic??

From Irv:

He comments,

The second and third frames in the second row are what IDU. If the Wizard is cheating, shouldn’t the beam and hangers be visible there as well as in the last frame? Otherwise, maybe he is cheating and conjures the beam and hangers to “prove” he wasn’t using magic in the previous frames even though he was? All told, IDU what’s going on here.

For that matter, if there’s some magic making the beam and hangers invisible that he somehow forgets? turns off? for the last frame, how did he appear to lift it off the ground??

by multipleciduers

Saturday Morning OYs – November 02nd, 2024

This Rabbits Against Magic strip looked like a simple OY at first, but now I’m puzzled:

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How does “tre” count as a pun on “trace“?

This Rhymes with Orange is an OY-Ewww:

Jack Applin submitted this Andertoons as a CIDU, asking “Is the one-eyed robot unable to see the traffic lights? [OR] Is is programmed to ignore them, giving an advantage to “driverless” cars?“

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Mark Anderson’s original title for his comic #9221 reveals that Jack’s first question was right on the money: The gag is a reference to one of the most common anti-robot user verification tests, typically presented by the reCAPTCHA interface:

Later that same month (in 1967):

The punchline is in panel 5, but for many of us it would be a CIDU. The authors conveniently use panel 6 to make the joke clearer.

For more about the psychiatrist character, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/barney-and-clyde-finds-inspiration-in-a-little-peanuts-farming/2011/07/20/gIQAcMmeTI_blog.html

by Kilby

Astronomical Golfing Errors

Jack Applin submitted this B.C. strip as a CIDU, noting that “Grog hit the ball to … Saturn? Let’s ignore the [80 minute] light speed delay [one way!]. What is that film around the planet and rings? Atmosphere? But Saturn is a GAS GIANT — all that we see is atmosphere inside the rings!“

The obvious astronomical destination would have been a black hole, but that would have been impossible to convey to readers, and the closest known black hole is 1500 light years away.

My guess is that Mason chose Saturn because it is the only planet that could possibly be recognized in comic strip resolution. Most papers that still print daily comics do so in monochrome, which could seriously deteriorate the carefully shaded images in the first three panels.

P.S. Just a week later, a very similar gag appeared in The Wizard of Id:

Both strips have a long history of using golf gags, but a little more temporal separation between these two might have been advisable.

by multipleciduers

Saturday Morning OYs – July 27th, 2024

This first one is more of an Ewww than an OY:

P.S. The weather this summer has been exceptional for snails and slugs; every few days I can go into the back yard and collect a dozen (or even a score) of the gross things.

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This is only the third time that the Keane’s “Family Circus” has appeared at CIDU (not counting a few mashups and tangential references).

A Comic I didn’t understand the first three times I saw it. I wasn’t puzzled, just mistaken.

I thought the point was just in the dog choosing to ignore the request (command) and pursue different interests.

This atrocious B.C. pun appeared just in time for the opening ceremonies:

Tolkien wrote that the Elves made three rings, the Dwarves were given seven rings, and Sauron made nine rings to entrap the Nazgul, but where do the five rings fit into the story?