Thirty Years Ago …

Here’s some current comics as they were posted on January 16, 1995

Baby Blues is still building that family.

Big Nate is easily recognizable, without much change.

Arlo and Janis look a big younger, but otherwise the same.

FoxTrot was still in dailies.

I wanted to check Gasoline Alley, which is famous both for being long-running and for aging the characters. But they’ve switched syndicates over time, and I got the message “Gasoline Alley started on April 8, 2001”.

Labor Day 2024


A bit of nostalgia here, since we seem to have been in a continual U.S. political campaign since 2018, with little or no letup.




The day after Labor Day used to be the traditional day for school to start, but the start has crept backwards: the local schools start a full two weeks earlier. Are there schools that have the patience to wait until after Labor Day? (colleges don’t count).

Since this is CIDU, we’re including this one, that’s not so much a CIDU as a search engine lookup for Hokas.


Labor Day is typically the end of the period when vacations are taken for adults as well, at least those who have children in school.


And to close out with a return to a pet view :

It’s the 4th of July!

[2024-07-04 note: This post was originally from last year, 2023, but now bumped up as a republish. One or two strips added to the post proper as of the 2024 republish. Previous comments are retained, and current readers are encouraged to continue the comments thread!]



July 4th is zbicyclist’s wife’s birthday. She had to age a few years before she realized the fireworks weren’t for her.



But that’s not all of the story: On July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams also died. His last words included an acknowledgement of his longtime friend and rival: “Thomas Jefferson survives.” Adams was unaware that Jefferson had died several hours before. At 90, Adams was the longest-lived U.S. president until Ronald Reagan surpassed him in 2001. (and now Jimmy Carter, born October 1, 1924) Source: Wikipedia.


[This Mutts strip added for 2024. It was just too sweet to resist.]


[This Peanuts is from 1964]

May Day!

Bonus Post: So help me, it’s May Day!

There are a number of reasons (and ways) that May Day is celebrated around the world, as these comics demonstrate:








Of course, the “real” reason for the holiday is its significance for the labor movement, but that is precisely why it has a somewhat tarnished reputation in the United States…



… especially because of certain militaristic “celebrations” in other parts of the world:


Therefore, since today is not a holiday in the United States, it may be necessary to postpone the celebration:


Deadly thoughts

It’s Halloween! It’s one of the set of similar days with very different tones: There’s the Day of the Dead, with reverence for the departed. There’s Halloween, where in theory the evil spirits have power, but has evolved into a chance to meet the neighbor kids, if only briefly. There’s All Saints Day on November 1, a day of celebration. Following that, on November 2, is All Souls Day, which I remember in particular for that scary sequence in the old Latin liturgy:

O wrath, O day of mourning,

O hear the fateful prophet’s warning,

Heaven and earth in ashes burning. …

When the Judge his seat attaineth,
And each hidden deed arraigneth,
Nothing unavenged remaineth.

What shall I, frail man, be pleading?
Who for me be interceding,
When the just are mercy needing? …

The general tone is aptly captured in Verdi’s or Mozart’s Dies Irae, from their Requiem Masses.

Of course, you might also mistranslate “Dies Irae” as “Day of the Iras”, and listen to Ira Glass’s This American Life, or some of those great songs from George and Ira Gershwin. Or not.







Saturday Morning OYs – June 3rd, 2023

(This is an OY by virtue of the “language play in any general way” subcategory.)


It seems Diamond Lil concentrates on OY punchlines almost every day; so it would be a danger to keep too often considering them for our weekly OY collections. Still, every once in a while, maybe for no particular reason, one of them will jump out and say “Use me!”.



Thanks to Philip for suggesting!

And if this was a semi-CIDU for you, let Editor Phil help out by pointing out that just before this moment of dialogue, the visitor must have addressed this officer as “Skipper”.


Sunday Funnies on Saturday – LOLs and OYs , May 13th, 2023



Obligatory pedantic note: I still don’t like to see “invite” as a noun in place of “invitation”!


Betty’s son asks a question, and sure enough farther down my GoComics feed, I find the answer in Big Nate: First Class!





We almost put this Other Coast in tomorrow’s Mothers’ Day collection.


This one probably was the basis for the “word play in general” category.


Sent in by >>Boy-see Ed<<, who says “This one suits me to a tea”.