Tag / Lay Lines

by EditorM

(New Arlo Page) Under the Zowie Moon

Today’s CIDU appears not in this post, which is visible at the “front page” , but at a separate “Arlo Page” that is not accessed unintentionally — though all you need do is follow that link. That’s because it’s arguably (barely) NSFW, as the drawing of the comic includes a (tasteful) nude. It’s this Monday’s Lay Lines by Carol Lay.

And also, frankly, because we just wanted to try out this mechanism for placing the theoretically provocative comic on a Page within this same CIDU site, as we cannot place it on the external Arlo Page site that CIDU Bill used for that purpose.

If you drop in over there, and read Bill’s intro to the Arlo Page idea and the different Arlo Award concept, that may answer questions you had about the distinction. As implied there, “Arlo Award” is a label applied to a comic entered on this site, in the main flow of Posts, and not a sign that it is hidden from unintentional eyes, like “Arlo Page” items.

While we’re at it, Bill’s intro on the aforementioned external Arlo Page site also has this to say about Arlo Award: The Arlo Award goes to a cartoonist who sneaks something blatantly inappropriate past the syndicate’s censors. Obviously this doesn’t apply to Internet-only or self-published comics. But nowadays there is little that literally qualifies as subject to potential censorship in that same sense, so we are modifying the definition:

An Arlo Award label (tag or category, don’t fuss) can go to “A comic with somehow ‘racy’ or provocative content, which successfully disguises that aspect, particularly through double entendre.  And regardless of the actual publication history and whether or not there was actual censorship potential.”

(Comments are open here and at the referenced page. This might be the better place for discussion of the above Arlo policies / definitions and attempted solutions, while comments on the page with the actual cartoon might be a better place to discuss what’s going on in that comic.)

by EditorM

Title of not-quite-CIDU post

Okay, it’s clearly not a CIDU because there’s no doubt what the joke is.

But this is sooooo familiar. But I don’t know from where, exactly. This is thus a Comic Whose Familiarity I Can’t Pin Down.

I think I’m thinking of a classic (or at least “very old”) bit by a comedy sketch group, like maybe Second City or The Groundlings or maybe even Nichols and May. Can anybody ID a sketch using this idea or pattern?

That is: a dialogue in which the actually uttered words are descriptions of the place in the structure of the scene occupied by the character’s turn or line; or description of the tone and effect of a line that would go there; or some similar meta-level description in place of the expected base-level line of dialogue.

Also, can you make a short and snappy name for the trope? And more examples, in any genre?

GoComics commenter “The Brooklyn Accent” posted a link to the song clip below, “Title of the Song” by Da Vinci’s Notebook, which does some of the same things and probably belongs within the same trope.