After a long break recovering from health issues, Brian Basset is back with new Red and Rover strips.
Sent by Whitey, who says “Reading MY mind. My wife, the day she cleaned the aquarium, pointed it out to me.”
This entry was originally posted on 2020-Nov-13. We were reminded of it when reading Tom Falco’s newsletter today (corresponding to this post on his Tomversation blog), which reprints this panel along with pictures and commentary on his recent New York visit.
Tomversation sent in by Ollie. As a CIDU? Didn’t say! Is the joke like those set at modern art galleries, where a frame surrounds a stain on the wall, here turned into a window mistaken for an art object? Or is it just a fond reminder that one can tire of any quality of indoor view and welcome a glance out a window? [2022 comment: Falco’s title “The grass is always greener” would seem to fit better with that latter view.]
Next mystery: Is it meant to be somewhat realistic? So these would be a collection of posters on paper, mounted on somebody’s wall? No? An actual touring exhibition of masterpieces unlikely to be loaned out and then exhibited together? Nah.
Does it remind you of one of those paintings that show other paintings, maybe in a gallery setting? Like this one by Samuel F. B. Morse:
[2022 comment: The Picasso has been identified by commenter Olivier: “BTW, the Picasso is ‘portrait de femme au béret orange et col de fourrure (Marie-Thérèse)’, 1937.”]
And now, for something not quite completely different! Still in the realm of fine arts and popular suspicion, this OY from Cornered, sent by Olivier.
Wrong Hands can be cynical without being mean:
Oh, how those New Yorkers love themselves some art:
And The Far Side on “The Art of Conversation”. Sorry, just a link, not a copy.
https://www.thefarside.com/2020/10/30/2
And just be hush-hush about this, okay? —
I can see they are unhappy animals huddled under a tree, but what’s the joke? What’s special about this tree, that it was left? Why are there domestic animal in there (a cow, a sheep) that wouldn’t be in a forest anyway?
Another stump theme. This one’s not a CIDU; It might be titled “Pinocchio, the Final Cut”
(This is half of a Sunday Cornered, using only one of the two separate joke panels.)
Underlying this is a pretty standard modern-office joke — make yourself indispensable and they will go to lengths to bother you on your off-time.
But how are they doing it? Is this just an arty juxtaposition of two well-separated scenes? Or are they linking by video call, so that he can demonstrate the technique, for someone back at the ranch to execute? Or have they borrowed a transporter from a friendly Star Trek franchise; or using a drone to deliver and retrieve the printer and materials to his lake? What is that vertical line? Or are vacations now required to be taken in-office, courtesy of a crack art and special effects department? Or, indeed, by holodeck?
Two Andertoons for the price of one.
Well that’s getting down to the point!
Nice to see the secondary characters getting featured on their own.
Here’s that “LOL-Yikes! (horror)” you saw category-tagged and wondered about.
Actually I think this is making a pretty deep point about the relativity of relativity.
Thanks to Bill R, who says “It’s like they’re daring us to figure it out”. Which is why there is a CIDU category (“tag”) on this, along with the “(Not a CIDU)” for the OYs list in general. Look, don’t question it too hard. Oh, and it’s not a pun really, but gets an OY as a language-related item. Also this list was sitting bare too long …
The usage they’re disputing over was taught in my schooldays as one of “those common mistakes to be avoided”.
OK, I think (but am not positive) that I get the alternate meaning the joke depends on — from too many crime shows, the best deals a defendant’s lawyer might hope to extract from a prosecutor would involve setting no additional jail time, so the defendant gets to “walk away” or “take a walk”.
First I thought the outside guy was wearing an odd bathrobe; but throw in his laurel wreath and I guess he is at a toga party. But not the inside guy. Oh well, it doesn’t seem to affect the joke.
Possible cross-comic banter, based on spelling of the name?
The caption does a good job of picking up on some terminology that is deep deep geezerdom, beyond even the floppies themselves.
And I recently noticed some folks referring to the 💾emoji as “save file” rather than anything about “disk”.
From the “Ain’t it the truth!” brand of complaint humor:
The dog is up to something, hmm?
Bonus Bliss, with a somewhat less communicative canine:
Home, sweet home
I did literally LOL! But filing it with the OYs for the word play.
Now the rainman gave me two cures Then he said, “Jump right in” The one was Texas medicine The other was just railroad gin An’ like a fool I mixed them An’ it strangled up my mind An’ now people just get uglier An’ I have no sense of time
Writing prompt: That’s a *winch*. Why is that a better pun than a *wrench* would have been?
In the lane of “I guess I get the intended joke point, but the execution is unsuccessful” we have this “powdery math” example from zbicyclist. “I’m lost here. He’s eating one donut, and has another on his plate. That’s two donuts. So how is it 50% less sugar than two donuts?” I guess the *one* donut Leroy is waving around does have 50% less sugar than the two he has altogether, since it’s 50% less donut.
I thought at first it was going to be the funnish kind of percentage mistake coming from inconsistent base. We’re going to increase your supply of widgets by 10%. But now you have too many, so we’ll reduce your supply by 10%. That should put you back where you started …. eh?
The main-punch of this charming joke is clear enough — curiosity may be fatal to cats (as in the common saying) but not to these patients. But what is it that the vet has diagnosed as a case of curiosity? And is it supposed to be clear why he speaks in the singular, and which one of the dogs is the patient?
I dunno, maybe the problem is that the top section looks like a “throwaway panel” but actually it’s essential that it appear right above the scene with the cars. Because it’s the upper-storey window and sign for the gym? But we still have to pin down the connection between weight-lifting and how that extra car got where it is.
If your thing is to visually or linguistically play off some familiar phrase or saying that almost everybody surely knows …. there’s going to be trouble when you use some that nobody knows. (All right, I know about “disruptor”. But that’s about it.)
Okay, let the anatomists explain from the configuration of fingers (and additional hand in panel 2) that the hand doing the artwork in panels 2 and 3 has to be Nancy’s. Even so, what does it get her? And if it could possibly be Fritzi’s own, does that mean her panel 1 nag about “the expression on my face” was just a fancy prank setup?
Comics I Don't Understand 