If you’re thinking “Didn’t we just see this same joke?” you may be remembering this Life On Earth we posted recently. (Hey, that was in Sunday Funnies – LOLs, May 7th, 2023 . How come the Farcus today goes in the OYs?)
Found on Facebook without good information. We’ve tagged for “Frank Svoboda” based on the (c) line; but searching that name finds someone who was a collector / dealer / agent but doesn’t say he was also a creator, and those roles could fit with copyright holder. So maybe the writing on the side of the bar is the signature? It seems to say “Phranque” and while there is a band with that name I didn’t find any cartoonists or illustrators. And maybe that brings us back around to Frank S, who could have liked stylizing his first name.
A suggestion from Maggiethecartoonist:
Discussion among Maggie and the editors suggested that there are several informations perhaps not immediately known to all readers, which are useful to unpacking the multiple jokes/OYs here. So something of a semi-CIDU.
Several OYs from Andréa who says “Today must be Pun Day, rather than Labor Day . . . altho some of these puns could be considered quite labored . . .”.
Well, there’s a good OY on the left, and a good LOL on the right, and I’m feeling too lazy to get out the cropper, so let’s print it twice, once today, and once yesterday or tomorrow.
Not a huge LOL, but Tiger and Punkinhead here are reproducing a classic problem in the literature of logical representation, going back to Bertrand Russell.
An Arlo-LOL from Divad who says “I’ve got a pretty good guess what was on Arlo’s mind (in general), but I’m trying to not picture what he’s specifically thinking.”
Did he go back in, to literally ask to be abused once more? And is the thing hanging from his collar in the 2nd panel the guitar seen on the ground in the 1st panel (or maybe its case)? Was his guitar playing the reason Sarge is booting him out?
Republishing this post, so that the site front page will have some comics, instead of the discussions of the domain name difficulties. But an update on those has been posted to
Is it just that the guy is so shook up he books three appointments a day? Is that all there is? Is it weird that the receptionist builds on the standard “Your three o’clock is here” instead of, maybe, using his name (which she must be familiar with by now)?
This was going to be a standalone CIDU, with the question-blurb of The slug has eaten some salted snack and is having a toxic reaction?? There was another fly, and the frog scooped him up with his tongue?? Do you have another?
But then I realized the item hanging out of the frog’s mouth is not his tongue (which would be thin and ready to flick) but a wing tip, matching the wings we see on the speaking fly at the left. Well, that answers which of the explanations it was.
But I didn’t know whether to feel cheated of a mystery, or ready to applaud the skilfully delayed punch. Anyway, that landed it here!
“Love” – “Confess” – “Surf”
Those are the titles I can make out among the items displayed at this newsstand.
Okay, the joke is that this soldier (is he “Killer”?) is really just interested in eyeing the pin-ups and girlie publications, while prolonging his visit by asking for various small-town papers the newsstand does not carry.
But why do I feel like that raises gaps in the story that ought to have been dealt with? Like: is he making the towns and papers up, or are they supposed to be real within the fictive world? Is the “Nope” answer the basis for him to keep going, with possible second or third choices? Or might he have gotten them all, if commissioned by several guys back at the platoon to bring them back their respective home-town papers? And does this newsstand in fact carry regular newspapers and general-interest magazines, and the pin-up material is just what gets most prominently displayed? Or is that all they sell?
Hmm, something missing? Oh yes – the generator that would be hooked up so that the exercise bike powers the fan! Or go old style, and show some belts and pulleys making a mechanical connection. Otherwise, what’s the joke?
Here we have just one of those unanswered little mysteries, not any critique. Just what did he mean to say instead, eh?
P.S. It doesn’t answer that question, but the next day’s strip is from the same therapy session, and picks up the theme of slips.
I only recently started sometimes reading One Big Happy, and evidently don’t yet have a good handle on the age and attitude of the intended audience. But these are all clear OYs on familiar sayings.
Is this Horace himself, doing some kind of costumed performance? Or an ancestor or other predecessor, who looked like that in his heyday?
When this was new, in 1965 or 1966 (I can’t quite make the date out — though the 6/16 at lower left is quite clear, as the pigeons have not yet picked it up), probably it was already a challenge to the reader to recognize some already-retro references, to famous real-world couples or other cartoon-world characters. And probably some randomly tossed-in names; and probably some not-famous real-world friends of Mort Walker’s; and certainly some pairing-up jokes (Emmy and Oscar?).
And after the passage of another 55 or 56 years, how many of them can we get? I’m not really much of a comics historian, so maybe … none? But others may do better.
I don’t get how the incoming storm is going to make things any better. It’ll dilute the soup in the big pot, stretching how many it will feed? It will scare away the less hardy soldiers, so our guys will move up in line right away?
Or could he mean, Relax, we’re not going to even get close?
From Chemgal, who says “I thought the highest possible GPA was 4.0. Are they using a different scale in Zits?” She mentions she can think of a possible explanation, and I think I know what it is too, but even if it’s not a full CIDU there may be enough uncertainty for people to discuss as a Semi-CIDU.
This Beetle Bailey is from 1965-05-17, and appeared in ComicsKingdom retro series recently on Thursday 2021-12-02. I wasn’t aware that spray-painting would be part of helmet maintenance, but I guess why not? But what exactly is going on in the aftermath scene that is puzzling the General? Has the grass in general been painted an odd color, but not inside the helmet outlines where it was shielded? But those patches don’t look like they’re supposed to be natural grass. Or has the procedure somehow damaged / killed off the grass inside the helmets, and left it normal outside?
We all know one of the standard time-travel puzzlement plots involves killing Hitler young. But what are the stories about smuggling him away in your luggage?
Call me hidebound and oldfashioned, but I don’t always think open-ended and unresolved are better. MAYBE someone with a lot of insight into snoring does have a principled way of matching these up. But without that, or an official answer key, you have to resort to “Oh, just posing the question is funny, and gives us a chuckle about how much snoring goes on and how bad it is.” But is that really enough?
Comics I Don't Understand 