The two strips below were a Monday and a Friday release, with three completely unrelated comics in the days in between. Does that boost the joke?
The squiggle in the bottom right looks identical in the two final panels, and may be a hint of the guest artist’s signature. Does anyone here remember where we might have seen a listing of the guests and their dates?
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.
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:
Pete sent this in. It’s also a bit of a CIDU, since wouldn’t knights in armor have metal plate on the bottom of their feet?
And here’s one sent in by Usual John, a bit more of a comic scene-rendering than a gag LOL:
In particular, local rules can cause problems. In the card game Hearts, does the jack of diamonds mean anything special? Can you dump on the first trick? In Monopoly, do you complain that the game takes too long, but put $500 on Free Parking, and allow houses to be turned in for full value? In poker, is the worst low hand A-2-3-4-6 or 2-3-4-5-7? Complain about your favorite example of local rules in the comments.
From the Ask-Me-Anything episode:
This “Barney & Clyde” strip was submitted by Usual John:
I think the gag is that the strip itself does not have (and does not need) a gag, but I’m sure there are other possible explanations.
I went hunting to see if there were any other worthwhile April Fools’ strips, but was sorely disappointed. Almost all of the “standard” setups simply showed one character playing a typically lame practical joke on someone else. The best strips were those few that elevated the humor with some sort of “meta” component. Here are a few examples:
(I especially liked this “Thatababy” strip because this year, my daughter decided to rearrange the silverware drawer as an April Fools’ joke. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, because we all just assumed that she had forgotten the usual arrangement.)
The last two examples are from the great Comic Strip Switcheroo (1-Apr-1997):
P.S. Feel free to embed your own favorite April Fools’ comics in the comments!
At first sight, this was going to be a CIDU. Then it was agreed to be not that puzzling — still, it’s not perfectly clear if it’s just a funny situation idea.
Say, what actually was the reason for Cmdr. Bond’s preference? Do the components get more evenly mixed, or less? Does some air get incorporated? Does it bring out the flavoring of the vermouth? Or hide it?
A geezer theme for sure.
An interesting kind of Meta, that we are flatfootedly calling “LOL-Meta, alluding to an old joke, by forestalling it”. Possibly a CIDU for a few — if you don’t already know what the patient’s question had to have been, by all means venture an idea of it in comments.
…could a groundhog hog, if a groundhog could hog ground?
…unless of course Phil beats the believers to the punch:
Here are four different approaches to affecting the prediction:
This Ink Pen rerun from February 2010 just happened to appear on New Year’s Day 2024. I can recognize the cartoon sources for all of the names mentioned by Hamhock, but I can identify only one of Ralston’s examples (the last one: “Goolagong“). I assume that most of the rest would yield relatively quickly to a concerted Internet search, but that’s not what I want to know. Is this a “geezer” and/or “millennial” issue? How many of those twelve names in the first three panels are obvious to the rest of you?
It’s New Year’s Day, 2024, so why not post some New Year’s cartoons from another NY, The New Yorker? Wait. Wasn’t that yesterday’s theme? But this is a theme so nice, we’re using it twice.
1931 (i.e. first issue of 1931): some wake-up bells to start your year
1930
1932: not a cheerful New Year’s
1933: Roosevelt’s been elected, but not inaugurated. The man here is not hopeful.
1933
Similar theme from 1934:
To all our readers, commenters, editors, and cartoonists who make this possible, best wishes for a wonderful 2023 2024!
Reflect and think? Or maybe just do some things appropriate to the season. Change out that furnace filter that should be changed every 3 months. Is your toothbrush getting too long in the tooth? Check your IRA balances if you’ll need to make RMDs. Check the refrigerator for stuff that expired in 2022. Make some Hoppin’ John with those black-eyed peas in the back of the pantry. Feel free to comment on your own ways to mark (or ignore) the day.
Or, perhaps like Mooch, you’re perfect and can just take a nap.
Let’s end with an OY:
The elevator call button scenario is a familiar trope for Horace :
But others are not banned from exploring a similar idea:
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An OY!
Comics I Don't Understand 