Tag / Off the Mark

by Kilby

Birthday Memorial for CIDU Bill

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.

Remembering

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.

Cakes & Cards

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.

Parties

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.

Presents

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.

Geezerhood

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).

Technology

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.

Mortality

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!

by phsiii

Excuse ME. I don’t get it.

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:

  • air dancers
  • tube guys
  • inflatable guys
  • tall boys
  • fly guys
  • sky dancer
  • tube men
  • air rangers

Creepy by any name. Though I did see a desktop-sized one once that was kinda cute.

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, June 11th, 2023

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:

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, June 4th, 2023

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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by multipleciduers

M is for the Many

With considerable forethought, Chemgal sent this in when it appeared, last July!

There is a motherlode of Mothers Day cartoons from Foxtrot collected at their website, of which we will sample just a couple.

This first one was featured by Bill on CIDU in 2018:

This “Breakfast in Bedlam” strip seems to be from 2001:

MD gifts funded by allowance, a theme for Fox Trot, also features here in Calvin, 1989:

This resurfaced in this Saturday’s Counterpoint mailing, not where I’m used to seeing B&C.

by multipleciduers

M’aidez with some Not-Quites and Oopsies

Peculiar but not quite an intriguing CIDU, wry but not quite a LOL, pun-adjacent but not quite an OY, or just based in a factual mistake …

Here in a current two-day sequence for Reply All, is there room to agree “Neither one is actually funny at all”?

Thanks to Mike Pollock, who says “You don’t often see graphical captions with typographical errors. Is Curly Bracket [ } ] there intentionally?”

Okay, maybe this is just quibbling, but we all know a real Etch-A-Sketch doesn’t erase that way. You need to turn it face-down and shake. Or maybe it can marginally work to keep it face-up and shake vertically as well as side-to-side — but the shake lines here don’t suggest that enough.

Well, no. Frank does have multiple sources, multiple origins — so the Ancestry.com jokes work well. But there’s nothing about his special situation that puts him here, and here, and here too.

And the squirrel trying to justify it accomplishes nothing much. The map notations say “You are here” not “You have been here” – just as real building directories do.

This says “WANTED — [strikeout]ALIVE[/strikeout] OR DEAD”.

But, but … which party is supposed to be pictured on the poster, the hunter or hunted?

Sorry to pick on Whamond, but while we all know about cartoon physics I have some doubt about cartoon math. That’s the plain number three, he’s not in any respect irrational or in danger of turning irrational. He could slide up to pi nearby and be not only irrational but transcendental — but there is no indication of that happening. He’s just three, the natural number, not irrational and not even negative.

by EditorM

Some random retro LOLs

This next one depends on remembering when Lars von Trier and friends declared the Dogme 95 principles for filmmaking. (And probably does not require remembering the Kevin Smith film Dogma.)

With this December 2011 Brevity, we’re getting a bit into OYs.

And we interrupt our parade of Oldies to drop in a Duffy Lug Nuts on the same theme from current GoComics publication:

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, January 8th, 2023

Wow, the last two Sundays were on the holidays, so there were a lot of LOLs people saw but we didn’t have the right place to post yet. And now …

A bit of synchronicity in my GoComics feed suits this post to a T.

Off the Mark

Yep, that should have more cat-appeal than pizza.

And can’t let it go without a last-minute Zack!

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by Winter Wallaby

Happy Chanukah [2022 repost]

[2022 Repost] [On 19 December, the first full day.]

[This was one of a series in 2021 which Winter Wallaby posted with different spellings of the name of the holiday.]

[Links at bottom]

Happy Chanukah, if you’re celebrating. (The comics aren’t here as Ewwwws, they’re just fun Chanukah comics.)

Happy Chanukka!
Happy Hanuka
Happy Chanukkah
Happy Hanukkah