Tag / Macanudo

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, October 27th, 2024

Kilby comments: This Macanudo isn’t really “laugh out loud” funny (it’s closer to an “Awww”), but I found the diagonal framing (and the “lensing” effect in the title panel) so impressive that wanted to share it with everyone:

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The strip is even better if you open the image in a new tab (or window), and let it fill the screen.

P.S. As long as we are reminiscing about summer, here’s how Calvin & Hobbes spent a similar day (three decades ago):

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P.S. The fact that Bil Keane drew a few of his own “grown up children” strips doesn’t make that Ink Pen any less funny.

Danny Boy was kind enough to send in these LOLs.

Nancy Classics this week gave us this comic from 1955. Half dollars almost call for a geezer alert. Relatively few of them are still made in the U.S.

Dollar coins are no longer minted after multiple failures to gain acceptance (Susan B. Anthony, Sakagawea, U.S. Presidents). The U.S. Mint does produce some American Innovation Dollars, but these are not intended for circulation and are sold at a premium.

From 2001-2020, the U.S. Mint produced half dollars only for collectors because the Federal Reserve already had plenty, but limited production has now resumed.

In 2023, the United States Mint produced a total of 11.38 billion coins for circulation. Here’s the breakdown by denomination:

  • Pennies (1 cent): 6.58 billion
  • Nickels (5 cents): 1.24 billion
  • Dimes (10 cents): 2.37 billion
  • Quarters (25 cents): 1.15 billion
  • Half dollars (50 cents): 40.2 million
by EditorM

Can it count as a CIDU? Or just striking or absurd imagery? Part 2

(Part 1 can be found at this link.)

Some comics for which we could not answer “What is the joke here?” but OTOH could not in good conscience call a clear CIDU and devote a full daily standalone to.

No, we haven’t any idea, at least not if it’s supposed to be clever or a punch line. And does that mean the joke here is just … “What if there were traffic cops in outer space!”?

Shoehorning in a lovely Macanudo, not meant as funny but it claims to not be surreal either!

This one also may not perfectly fit the premise: I sort of see a joke, and it’s sort of funny. But mostly the point seems to be just contemplating the sad aspects of the absurdist situation.

Here’s one that Grawlix says showed up in his Facebook feed; apparently posted by the cartoonist, asking his public whether the cartoon makes sense. It probably does — there are good suggestions in the Facebook comments — but for some the main impression is just how strange it must be to meet this locomotive guy!

This one qualifies, not for absurdism precisely, but for startling incongruous backstory imagery. She’s going out, and her parents say “Don’t be late [getting back]”, all of which is perfectly normal — except she’s in a battle tank!

A GoComics commenter adds “Pero pasatelo bien” (“But have a good time”) — reminding me of my high school girlfriend’s mother, who would usually say “Be good! And have fun!”.

by Kilby

Sometimes “translation” means moving to a different place

Here are two more instances of creative translation in “Macanudo”.

The Spanish dialog means: “I wish the leaves had eyes.” – “Ha ha ha! The things you say!“

In both cases the gag is a simple (auditory) pun: in English twofold on “leave(s)” (noun/verb); in Spanish threefold on “ojalá“=”wish”, “hojas“=”leaves”, and “ojos“=”eyes” (one verb and two nouns; all three words sound very similar).

In this second case the difference between the two language versions is more extreme:

In Spanish: “Do you like it when I call you a lunatic?” – “Yup.“

Perhaps the translator did not trust English-speaking readers to recognize the “lunar” etymology of “lunatic”, or maybe she simply loved the song lyrics more.

P.S. Several months ago I looked up the meaning of the name “macanudo“, discovering that it meant “a person or thing considered admirable or excellent because of its positive qualities“. Besides being an eminently appropriate name for the comic strip, this also explains why it is the name of a cigar brand. I was in Copenhagen (on vacation) just a few days before I created this post, and just happened to run into this shop:

by Kilby

Cross-Cultural Calendars

This Macanudo strip might appear to be misdated to American readers:

… because the school year ended over a month ago. It turns out that the Argentinian school year begins in March, and doesn’t end until December. Nevertheless, the strip is still (slightly) misplaced, because Argentinian students go on their Winter break in July. Henrietta may not be at the beach, but she isn’t in school right now, either.

by Kilby

Bashing on the Drummer

We discussed this first Macanudo strip (in both languages) in the “Macanudo Road” post in April:

At the time I thought that Liniers changed the name of the leader because Ringo is still alive (and John isn’t), but a pair of subsequent strips give me the impression that he just likes bashing on drummers:

(Of course, this strip has absolutely nothing to do with the way nor why Best was actually dumped from the Beatles.)

Just like the first strip above, the question here is “Why Ringo?” (Perhaps he is supposed to be the one with the lowest level of awareness-enhancing substances in his system?)

by EditorM

Bonus post: Back in the translation shop

Today’s Macanudo, twice:

“It was nice while it lasted.” Okay, I’ll buy the pairing. Both are sweetly regretful but have just a tiny bit of a sting, don’t you think?

But now, today’s Baldo, also twice:

Now at first this looks like something we’ve seen a few times with Baldo: A pun or language-dependent joke in the English version, and then a reduction to a univocal expression in the Spanish version with no attempt to preserve the polysemy needed for the pun.

But not this time!

The key is in hachacento, which does not register as a recognized or translatable Spanish word, at least by Google Translate. But looking at parts:

hatchet ==> hacha
accent ==> acento

So we do get both axe and accent! (But not sent ==> enviad{o/a}. But who cares at this point!)

P.S. Don’t forget to stop and smell the noises in panel 3.

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, May 19th, 2024

Some comics with socks appeal:

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From the “Wisdom from the Funny Papers” Department. Sometimes a “cry for help” must be responded to with help. Sometimes when “they’re just doing that for attention” the humane response includes paying attention.

BTW, Maritsa Patrinos of the Six Chix now has her own separate strip, called Working Cats and appearing at Comics Kingdom.

I thought this was going to be about sentence-adverbs; but it was better than that. (Hopefully, everybody remembers what the controversies and pseudo-rules about sentence-adverbs were.)

No, I don’t see a joke here. But also I can’t say there’s supposed to be one, so it’s not really a CIDU. So let’s just take a minute to admire the artistry here. Such draughtsmanship! That ice-cliff shows us both distance and height, even while a whole surface is devoid of detail.