








JMcAndrew sends this in: “I believe the object on the left is an old style computer. I’ve spent longer than I care to admit contemplating the mechanics of how this “affair” might happen.”
This might be filed under “jokes that don’t work well anymore”. At the time this was done (1987), this would be hard. Now, linking computers to TVs is ubiquitous in several ways, most obviously via HDMI, which dates from the early 2000s. There’s some history of HDMI here: https://blog.solidsignal.com/tutorials/sordid-history-hdmi-revised-updated/
Parenting isn’t quite what it used to be, either (or, as JMcAndrew suggested, this deserves an Arlo tag).



And: would Alice’s condition be covered by United Healthcare?



Tony sends this one in, which began as a CIDU: “as I was writing this realized that the punchline was about a nose job. It didn’t even notice the change at first. I guess not having a nose must be pretty miserable, but I couldn’t even tell that sphinx was supposed to be a living creature.”





Jack Applin sends in this New Year’s CIDU. “A tepid comic, not much more than “Huh”/“You know it”. Two things: Is 2024’s beard talking? Point that speech bubble toward his mouth!
Also, was I the only person to stumble over “ ’nough said”? I blame Stan Lee for making me so used to “ ’nuff said” so that I didn’t recognize the standard spelling. See https://cbr.com/marvel-comics-stan-lee-fantastic-four-nuff-said/ for a history of that.”

And a big Happy New Year wish for all of us. Here’s a classic Nancy.

Boise Ed suggested this venerable “For Better or for Worse” strip (from 1993), commenting: “This one really warmed the cockles of my heart (and I have no idea where that idiom came from).“

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P.S. Ed didn’t give it a category, he called it “just sweet“, so I’ve added an “Awww” tag.
The New York Times has a Flashback quiz, which asks you to place 8 historical events in chronological order. The New Yorker has now started Laugh Lines, in which you are asked to put some New Yorker cartoons in chronological order. Here’s one:
https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/laugh-lines/no-2
I haven’t tested to what extent these are available to non-subscribers. The cartoon version would seem impossible, but there’s usually a clue to some event (e.g. the word “Obama”).
This one popped up at the end when I finished:


And now a few more Christmas LOL’s / Awws:
Danny Boy send this cutie in: “The pets’ fondness for a “little pink sock” is a running trope. But then the pairing of sock/stocking is I guess “the joke””

And a few holiday entries:



Jack Applin submitted this “Edison Lee” last year as a CIDU, but Comics Kingdom refused to produce it, until I remembered to change the URL from the old “.net” to the new “.com” address. Ooops.

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Jack commented: “Sure, the Rankin/Bass special. But what’s this about a finger in a nose? It wouldn’t BE in the special, if he were edited out.”
The humor is mostly just slapstick, but “nose” is probably a reference to the line in “The Night Before Christmas” (and the elf just messed up while “…laying his finger aside of his nose“).

Speechless Santa. Fill in your own dialogue. (GoComics posting error on 12/15. It’s clearly a GoComics error, because Arcamax shows the dialogue. GoComics corrected the error a day later.) It’s oddly meta, because panel 3 in the actual dialogue accuses Santa of not keeping up with the latest technology.


Steve B. sends this in. “Thought this was clever. Not sure everyone will get this if they don’t pay attention to the news.”


Mark H. send this in, noting “It took me a while”.


This Rabbits Against Magic strip looked like a simple OY at first, but now I’m puzzled:

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How does “tre” count as a pun on “trace“?
This Rhymes with Orange is an OY-Ewww:

Jack Applin submitted this Andertoons as a CIDU, asking “Is the one-eyed robot unable to see the traffic lights? [OR] Is is programmed to ignore them, giving an advantage to “driverless” cars?“

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Mark Anderson’s original title for his comic #9221 reveals that Jack’s first question was right on the money: The gag is a reference to one of the most common anti-robot user verification tests, typically presented by the reCAPTCHA interface:

Later that same month (in 1967):


The punchline is in panel 5, but for many of us it would be a CIDU. The authors conveniently use panel 6 to make the joke clearer.
For more about the psychiatrist character, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/barney-and-clyde-finds-inspiration-in-a-little-peanuts-farming/2011/07/20/gIQAcMmeTI_blog.html
I understood the primary gag in the final panels, but I do not understand the meteorological setup in the first panel:

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Perhaps it’s just the awkward expression: how can a hurricane “drop a millibar“? Did anything like this actually happen during either of the recent hurricanes?
I might as well include the previous two B&C strips, which feature Horace’s “intentional CIDUs. The solution to the first one was explained in Week 94 of the Invitational, in which Gene Weingarten solicited even more obscure “Horace” material. (The results will appear in the Invitational on Halloween, and the better ones will probably be immortalized in future Barney & Clyde strips.)

The second one I had to look up myself, but Barney’s tip in the last panel was a big help:

P.S. Given the solution, this one might also need a “geezer” tag.
Here’s a third “Horace” strip from last year, which was also included (with its solution) in the Invitational article:

Usual John submitted this Barney & Clyde as a CIDU:


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Catch 💧🦵’s (Wet Leg‘s) take on going to school and getting the big degree, in the first section of “Chaise Longue”.

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How does your head feel under something like THAT, / Your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat?