Tag / Wizard of Id

by Kilby

Working (it all) out

Irv submitted this Wizard of Id Sunday strip as a CIDU, commenting: “The second and third frames in the second row are what IDU. If the Wizard is cheating, shouldn’t the beam and hangers be visible there as well as in the last frame? Otherwise, maybe he is cheating and conjures the beam and hangers to ‘prove’ he wasn’t using magic in the previous frames even though he was? All told, IDU what’s going on here.“

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I agree with Irv: if there is no magic here, then the logistics of the Wizard’s cheating scheme simply do not work, for multiple reasons. The same problem in the second and third panels of the second row also applies to the first, and the hooks would also be visible in the third panel of the bottom row, since the barbell is drawn a little too low. Finally, the Wizard’s arms in the first panel of the bottom row appear to be impossibly long.

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, November 03rd, 2024

Boise Ed submitted this one last year, commenting “Every now and then, Pardon My Planet comes up with a real zinger.” I think I’ve seen it before, but I can’t find it in a CIDU post, and in any case it’s worth repeating:

The not-quite-complete “Arlo” moment in this “Zits” came as a big surprise. Perhaps King Features relaxed their censorship standards when they relaunched the Comics Kingdom website?

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P.S. And what if Jeremy’s mom had not left it out? What then?

Two half Arlos published on exactly the same day do not count as a whole synchronicity, but this Luann was pretty good, too:

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P.S. Note the annoying, but otherwise irrelevant color error in the second panel.

Boise Ed said about this Argyle Sweater: “Perhaps this is the fifth wall, since he’s erasing four“:

Another meta Macanudo:

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P.S. The title panel bears a fair resemblance to “In the Court of the Crimson King“, but it’s unlikely that it was intentional:

Danny Boy sends this in as a CIDU, but rather than post it long after Halloween we’re putting it here. “What, what? “I was making rather scary yesterday.” Is that something like “making merry”? I.e. celebrating and now hungover (and just getting into the office at a quarter to five)?

No, I don’t think I’ve answered my own question. “Making rather scary” is still pretty opaque.”

Or, trying to scare the street urchins?

Danny Boy hopes “that mechanism isn’t set up to treat the TP as reusable!”

by Kilby

Astronomical Golfing Errors

Jack Applin submitted this B.C. strip as a CIDU, noting that “Grog hit the ball to … Saturn? Let’s ignore the [80 minute] light speed delay [one way!]. What is that film around the planet and rings? Atmosphere? But Saturn is a GAS GIANT — all that we see is atmosphere inside the rings!“

The obvious astronomical destination would have been a black hole, but that would have been impossible to convey to readers, and the closest known black hole is 1500 light years away.

My guess is that Mason chose Saturn because it is the only planet that could possibly be recognized in comic strip resolution. Most papers that still print daily comics do so in monochrome, which could seriously deteriorate the carefully shaded images in the first three panels.

P.S. Just a week later, a very similar gag appeared in The Wizard of Id:

Both strips have a long history of using golf gags, but a little more temporal separation between these two might have been advisable.

by Kilby

The difference between the men and the boys…

Tim Harrod submitted this “Wizard of ID” strip, noting that “…the writer seems to think that Moses was a wizard“. I sure hope that the theology in B.C. isn’t starting to leak over into the Kingdom of Id.

I think the joke in the final panel is clear, but I don’t understand the gag in the second “throwaway” panel, unless it’s a topical reference to some scene in a movie. The part I liked best was the snide adjective in the fifth panel: “adult” appears to be referring to the juvenile wizards in Rowling’s “Harry Potter” books, who all use dinky little wands instead of “manly” staves. On the other hand, the Wizard’s traditional implement has always been one of those wands, as we saw in the “I’m stumped” post just last month:

by EditorM

I’m stumped!

Thanks to Tim Harrod for sending this in, and for his comments (below).

“Another baffler from the Hart estate. What has the Wizard done that’s transgressive, that he wouldn’t want to be connected to or blamed for? Does he think lumberjacks will be pissed that he’s slightly undoing their labor? I’m pretty sure they just want the wood.”

by zbicyclist

Saddle Up?

Tim Harrod sends this one in. “So… now he’s sitting on a giraffe. And kings rarely do that, and that’s the joke? The whole joke? No dialogue to nudge us in the right direction?”

The previous day doesn’t seem helpful here.

Giraffes aren’t ridable due to both structure (sloped back) and attitude. They are kissable, though.

by CIDU Bill

Circle of Ice

id heartbroken.JPG

Kilby writes: This “Wizard of Id” strip was taken from an unnamed draft post that CIDU Bill created in 2019. I initially thought that it was supposed to be a reference to the song “Circle of Life” (from Disney’s “The Lion King”), but comparing the guard’s dialog with the song’s lyrics did not produce a satisfactory match.

Am I missing something, or does anyone have a better suggestion?