It bothers me (mitch) a little bit that this seems to depend on fission being more dramatically explosive than fusion. But still it’s wordplay and it’s pretty funny…
Parisi himself made the following comments:
“The coffin is ajar”
“Now he’ll be berried”
As for me, I’d like to toast the deceased.
From Maggie the Cartoonist:
Here’s an LOL from Shoe that your editors didn’t take notice of until it was featured on The Comics Curmudgeon. Thanks, Josh / Uncle Lumpy!
Posted with comment “Oh, the irony!”
Well we’re all familiar with that pun (sez Mitch), but not usually from this perspective, nor presented so starkly.
When I (zbicyclist) saw this on social media, I thought it was probably altered. I don’t think of Charles Schulz using a lot of groaner puns. But it’s legit: it appeared February 9, 1982, as I found out using the Peanuts search engine, https://peanuts-search.com/?q=bush%20pilot
How nice, when you can know just what’s coming, but the joke works fine anyhow!
Note the man on the right is a psychiatrist.
The blonde is, of course, his sister. Don’t forget to read the signage on the wall.
Just BTW, does “aggro” in casual speech these days mean aggressive or aggravating?
Dýou think this is well-positioned to become even more popular than the one about the land of the blind?
A fine line between pun and equivocation.
In the GoComics comments, Teresa Burritt (creator of Frog Applause) revealed that this was a CIDU for her! (Several commenters answered to provide the Stephen King reference.)
Saturday, July 8th, 2023 would have been Bill Bickel’s 68th birthday; therefore: in his absence, and in his honor: Mazel tov! (מזל טוב)
Bill’s own tradition for the occasion was to create an elaborate “24-Hour Project”, with a new CIDU post timed to appear every hour throughout the day. Partly because these birthday comics are not CIDUs, but mostly because it would have been far too much effort just for a little structural nostalgia, this entire collection has been gathered into a single list (but is divided into appropriate categories).
If you have a favorite birthday comic, please feel free to add it in a comment!
The “featured image” at the top of this post shows Albert, Porky Pine, Beauregard Bugleboy, Bun Rab, Pogo, and Howland Owl doing a “Birthday Dance”, but the anonymous bug appended to the right isn’t actually singing: he appeared in a series of memorial tributes that Walt Kelly drew in the 1950s for his daughter Kathryn Barbara, who died shortly before she would have had a chance to enjoy her first birthday cake. Given that we are celebrating the birthday of a dearly beloved, but departed friend, I thought the image was very appropriate. For more information, see the Daily Cartoonist’s article about the Day of the Little Angels.
P.S. I would like to thank all of the CIDU Editors for their input, assistance, and constructive suggestions, but especially Phil, who took my rough template and laid the foundation for a much better design (and he also documented all the author and strip names in the tags).
The first Peanuts strip in this collection doesn’t fit into any category, because it has a singular “birthday” significance; it was originally published on Friday, July 8th, 1955 (the day that Bill Bickel was born):
Schulz never depicted any adults (and only very rarely mentioned any of the parents) in Peanuts.
With a few notable exceptions, this 1971 strip predates almost everything in this collection by more than two decades.
…even if he did rip the flower right out of her own garden. (Note: other than Stahler’s “pickleball” comic from 2023, this 2018 Marmaduke is the newest item in this entire collection.)
He should be comforted to learn just how much Rat thinks of him.
That cake must have been pretty tough to hold together like that.
Snoopy suffered a whole series of cat attacks in the 1970s, but this was one of the best.
For Bill we would need a pair of 34s, or (more likely) a 50 and an 18.
Only the Peanuts and Doonesbury strips are older than this Calvin & Hobbes strip.
Does this mean that they would rather celebrate the day he got laid?
This Peanuts strip (from 1951) is the only one in this collection that predates Bill’s birth.
Apparently Andy had already quit smoking 20 years ago, but he and Flo were still indulging in violent spouse abuse.
Bill had trouble understanding feline behavior, so this might have been a CIDU for him.
Garfield only rarely acts like a real cat, so Bill wouldn’t have any trouble here.
After all that trouble to escape, even his visit is no longer a surprise.
Color might have made this “Liō” strip easier to understand (each stack should be a different pastel shade), but Tatulli may have been going for the “dawning realization” effect.
If you cannot move the ball, just change the position of the goal posts.
One of the many running gags in Garfield is that he hates birthdays.
This appeared just in time to be included here; it’s also the only comic in this memorial collection that was published within the last three years (in other words: since Bill passed away).
This category seems more tragic than funny.
Mobile telephones can generate automatic reminders, so nobody really has to bother remembering birthdays any more.
This is the only Sunday strip in this collection.
This 2007 strip predates the widespread availability of 3D printing technology.
These three comics complement the previous memorial post (September 16th, 2022).
See also: https://cidu.info/2023/09/16/in-memoriam-bill-bickel/
P.P.S. Remember: if you have a favorite comic to help celebrate Bill’s birthday, please feel free to include it in a comment!
targuman sends (and provides the title above):
On the gocomics site, various folks suggest there’s a fart joke in there, but my inner five-year-old can’t make that work either.
Meanwhile, https://inflatableblast.com/inflatable-men-car-dealerships/ suggests that those waving inflatable things have a host of names:
Creepy by any name. Though I did see a desktop-sized one once that was kinda cute.
Brilliant!
The lion is the king of beasts, And husband of the lioness. Gazelles and things on which he feasts Address him as your highoness.
–Ogden Nash Poems to Carnival of the Animals
Y’know how sometimes when Cornered has a Sunday duplex strip (or higher multiple!), and just one of them hits the funny bone just right? And then CIDU is stuck trying to clip or trim to get that one panel? But this time it’s a case of “Why not both?” Two LOLs for the price of one!
And if we’re still in the Weekend of Remembering nineties/oughties Songs, here is one suggested by that comic:
Show of hands, did the term “body shop” make you think of lotions and scents, or crumpled fenders?
A couple of maggiethecartoonist suggestions:
When BillR sent this one in, we all racked our brains for common sayings, or notable events, or famous stories, involving tomatoes and lemons …
… but then it dawned on us that there is a traditional remark about comparisons, and it involves apples and oranges. So this could be a joke about literalizing that idiomatic remark, thrown into confusion by a colorist’s error! (Subsequently we found it discussed at the Comic Strip of the Day site, and there also attributed to colorist error.)
Here’s one spotted by Usual John at Comics Kingdom. It feels eerily like something we just recently saw, and discussed, with remarks about how it could stand in for a motto for CIDU. But then again, there’s today’s date, 5-31, right there in the panel; which makes it less likely this could actually be an oldie that CK happened to replay today.
Update! We put the above questions to an expert archivalist, who came thru with answers!
First of all, yes this was a rerun; but because the previous Comics Kingdom appearance was exactly a year earlier, on 2022-05-31, the date “5-31” embedded in the artwork for panel 3 does not mean this comic was actually new this week; nor does it make that date a paste-over job. (Though the syndication copyright notice running vertically between panels 1 and 2 does have the current year inserted.)
Also, it did appear at CIDU, and get discussed, on its publication date last year. Which is not really “just recently” as suggested above, but also is not absurdly far off.
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Comics I Don't Understand 