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.

Turn, turn, turn

Thanks to Targuman for sending this in, with illuminating comment.

That idea, and its expression as “nothing new under the sun”, is most prominent to our contemporary culture from the book which Targuman (and scholars of the Hebrew Bible) refers to as Qohelet (The Teacher), also known to most of us as Ecclesiastes (The Preacher) — famous for collaborating with Pete Seeger on that song. 🙂

Though that is the most familiar source, what are the chances it was actually the first? Hard to say, after several thousand years. However, somebody had to be first. And in that very moment they were making it false, since there was now something new: that very thought.

So that gives a fun-paradox! But … is it really a case of hypocrisy?


In memory of CIDU Bill Bickel

Several years ago, Bill commented upon the unusual frequency of “Grim Reaper” comics, and he even held an informal submission contest to prove his point.

For this reason, I suggested scheduling the following comic collection for today, the second anniversary of Bill’s extremely untimely passing, in memory of a dear friend whom we all miss terribly, and who (I believe) would have understood this rather unorthodox memorial presentation in the humorous and good-natured fashion in which it is sincerely intended.

It’s simply a real shame that Bill could not have had the chance to read and comment upon these comics with us all.

Michael Kilby

This Strange Brew was contributed by Andréa, originally as an Oy:

Leigh Rubin keeps on returning to the Grim Reaper theme:

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, September 11, 2022

Chemgal sends in this reminder that there might be a few syndromes not in DSM-5.





Thanks to John Reubens, who says “Thought this was clever. Made me LOL. 1880s version of unfriending? 🙂 “



Ran into this Liz Climo on Facebook; it doesn’t seem to be on GoComics, nor on her own site.


This is the funniest comic I’ve ever seen that seems reminiscent of the quadratic formula, although it doesn’t get the coefficients and exponents quite right.



Sunday Funnies – LOLs, August 28th, 2022

A mordant bit of meta.


Are all of them possible “jumpers” in their own contexts?




Here’s that Sad-LOL promised in the Tags.


And from DollarBill, a Fusco Brothers LOL with some Meta or 4thWall aspects:


Sunday Funnies – LOLs, March 6th, 2022

A link-only reference to this Medusa Far Side:

That’s quite a surprise!

“Thought I was being ghosted.”

A slightly Ewww-flavored LOL:

This might take a moment as a Quickie-CIDU before resolving as a LOL:

Bliss has been running an excellent series with the dog and/or cat in anthropomorphized domestic settings. Here is a good example: