We’ve had a couple other Ancestry.com panels from Argyle Sweater recently (do you remember “dachsund”?), but I think they landed in LOL or OY collections, as they did not present major interpretative difficulties. This one, however, has us stumped!
Eats, shoots, and leaves.
These are comics that somebody thought were pretty good, or even full LOL, and not baffling but a little hard to pin down. Like, you can think of a rather plausible explanation of the chuckle — or maybe two! — but there’s nothing that clinches the case that *this* or *that* just has to be the key to what’s going on.
For example, with something like this Andertoons, we might think of the minor mystery as expressed in terms of providing the missing caption. Is it about the odd feeling you’re being watched? Or more like “Oh, where did I set down my glasses?”. It could be either, do you agree?
A Minor Mystery from Darren, who says “I can’t tell if Watson’s jarns need to be interpreted as a specific term. I’m flummoxed. Apparently the squirrel is as well?”
Okay, the joke here is that the threatened punishment will involve a cannister vacuum cleaner (in what seems to be a photo clip?) rather than a conventional physical beating or the like. But it’s an unanswerable mystery just what the threat is. Torture by exposure to noisy motor, like a household pet? Being inhaled altogether? Having some portion of his body inhaled?
A CIDU-LOL from dollarbill.
Yes, there is something to be “got” here, and it’s a pretty good joke, even if the CIDU element is fairly easy. There is another unexplained element, which I didn’t quite realize was in need of explaining until dollarbill mentioned it (and reviewed them!).
The last few weeks I’ve felt that Wrong Hands has been a bit off their best form. But this one seems a good case of returning to their former standard.
So here is another Wrong Hands, sent in by Philip, who notes that as an Oy it would be tripartite. (Have we seen this one before?)
I have never sat down on a cat …. that did not immediately make the situation known! :-)
(Also adding in another Condron as he was unfamiliar to me.)
Arrgh, they just missed the chance to pun it off against serialism, the academic successor to atonal or twelve-tone music as a body of theory and compositional practice. To boot, cerealism and serialism are pronounced identically, while surrealism is distinguishable! Well OY to that, or indeed ARRRGH!
This time the squirrel does have something to say — and he’s clearly wrong.
Here’s an Oy-Ewww. Wait, do I know the actual etymology? And how’s about “steak tartare”?
An OY-LOL: Actually, by me the pun is pretty weak, but the execution of the planner page is quite fun!
Something of a nerd-Oy. Thanks to Mark Jackson for sending!
Seems like Brevity tries out a pun every single day. Sometimes they may hit all right.
Ah well, this may raise the perpetual question, Can an auditory pun survive being put into writing when that breaks up a double meaning?
From Andréa, as a kind of Arlo-OY:
Also Andréa:
This is not a full-fledged Sunday comic, but the intro and the two “throwaway” panels. Yet here is where the funny bit was!
From Mark Jackson:
Of course people have always thought “Ira Roth” could be someone’s name.
Oh wait! Just noticed that Arnold Zwicky’s blog goes into linguistic and referential detail about this one.
Do they have something backwards, tho?
Hmm, the status as an OY may be slightly dubious, but it’s worth it.
A possible double pun, from Andréa:
(A Super-Fun-Pak Comix)
Comics I Don't Understand 