Tag / Overboard

by zbicyclist

Fourth Wall Fun

By one definition, “4th wall comic refers to a comic book where characters become aware of their own fictional existence and address the audience directly. This concept, known as the Fourth Wall, separates the characters from the readers, allowing them to comment on the narrative and its limitations.” By that definition, not all of these fit. In some of these, it’s that the cartoonist lets us acknowledge the cartoonist’s existence, while the characters remain unaware. Is there a separate term that should be used for that?

by zbicyclist

Saturday Morning OYs – November 15, 2025

Mitch4 sends this in: “A pun that surprised me.”

Mitch4 sends this in: “Another pun that tickled me this morning. But with Frank and Ernest, you *always* expect a pun.”

billr sends this in: “oy? or is there an ewww?”

Your editor had a total knee replacement on Monday, and has been using stool softeners of both types all week. (all is well now)

by zbicyclist

What’s the Password?

Mark H. sends this one in: “It’s clear that this protects passwords from others, since she neither writes them down nor remembers them. But it would seem like they are also protected from her, hence useless. Maybe she has to use the “forgot password” routine each time, and so the password is never the same?”

According to NordPass, the most common passwords are still the most useless ones:

The same day Mark H. sent that in, there were two other password comics in my feed. These aren’t really synchronicities, because the jokes are all different, but why not pretend it’s National Password Day? (That’s actually the first Thursday in May.)

I worked at a company where every few weeks, a new 7 letter password would be automatically randomly generated for you. Well, maybe randomly. A colleague had gotten into a tiff with the head of IT, and his next password ended with 3 letters of his first name. The first 4 letters were an expression not allowed on vanity license plates. He was convinced there was nothing “random” about it. And, knowing the head of IT as I did, I’d bet he was right.

by Kilby

Anyone for a Tea Party?

It’s difficult to say which caffeinated drink is more popular; it depends on who and where you are (in America the answer would probably be “cola”).

…
I was once offered (hot) tea at a friend’s house (in high school); he dropped a tea bag into a mug of cold water, and put it all into the microwave for a minute or two. Just like Calvin’s attempt, it was a complete failure.

…
For several years a German brand of hair care products called “Alpecin” advertised its overloaded caffeine content as “doping for the hair“. This caused a fair amount of controversy, especially when the company later started sponsoring a bicycle racing team.

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, September 01st, 2024

Such practical good advice!

Chemgal sends in this unusually funny fourth-wall break.

Understanding hotel etiquette.

From Boise Ed, who gets the intended joke but remains dubious about there being something actually funny going on.

And a LOL from Usual John:

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, January 28th, 2024

This sub-feature of the SFPC repertoire rarely does much for me. But this instance worked well — maybe because it isn’t really “for the epically/brutally challenged” as much as “for the nightly news evaluation challenged”. 

This was a momentary CIDU — I was puzzling out which side of the deal was losing, and why — until the GoComics comments cleared it all up. If you still need a clue, look at those pages in his right hand.

Yes, we don’t publish synchronicities any more. But two comics on the obscure theme of squirrel pushing showing up not just on the same day, but right next to each other in my GoComics feed, was too much to resist.