From Ed Rush,, asking “Why would he need extra room to drink a cup of coffee-like substance?”
As someone who never learned to like coffee–when I lived in Canada I used to joke that I could never get my Canadian citizenship because I couldn’t even stand Coffee Crisp–I’m sure I don’t know either!
Boise Ed sends this in: “Absurd … Perhaps the category should be “Heaping scorn.” I can see no way they would both be on the hammock in the first place without serious cooperation.”
Remy’s vocabulary needs a little explanation: Strava is a free/paid app that is used by runners/cyclists/walkers to record time and distance. This is usually posted to Strava friends for kudos.
BQ in that last panel is Boston Qualifier, a time which would qualify you for the Boston Marathon. Women aged 18-34 need a time of 3 hours, 25 minutes or less.
Usual John sends this in: “I can’t help thinking of Idiot Bill Bickel, and the name Bilden Bickworm makes me think that may not be just coincidence. FYI for those who have not been following CIDU for years: Idiot Bill Bickel was (and presumably still is) a real estate agent who had the same name as CIDU Bill (the original moderator of this website) and inexplicably sometimes gave people CIDU Bill’s email address instead of his own.”
Is this missing the last panel, or am I missing the joke?
UPDATE: Checking the Comics Kingdom site this morning, I see that order has been restored (and that last panel). This comic is from May 5: CK now allows you to look forward in time (a week; May 8 is up now).
Mark H. submitted this 9CWL strip last year as a “Geezer Alert” (and partial CIDU), asking: “Does anyone younger than 60 know about Jimmy Hoffa?” (The CIDU and/or puzzle component is to figure out what she might have said to him underwater.)
… P.S. It is so refreshing to post a Chickweed Lane strip that is not (automatically) “Arlo” material.
This was going to be a CIDU, but it seems to be a colorist error. That’s not a basketball, but a curled up armadillo. But they don’t change color when they curl up, so far as I know.
From Wikipedia: “When threatened by a predator, Tolypeutes species frequently roll up into a ball. Other armadillo species cannot roll up because they have too many plates. When surprised, the North American nine-banded armadillo tends to jump straight in the air, which can lead to a fatal collision with the undercarriage or fenders of passing vehicles.”
Usual John sends this one in. This gets a bit of s “Eww”
The previous one in this series is pretty good, too.
The most recent appearance of Zits at CIDU was posted 4.5 years ago by Bill, so it seems like it’s time for a few more.
This first one was submitted two years ago by Dave in Boston, but probably got lost in the shuffle because the Arcamax link had expired(+), and Comics Kingdom (back then) had a very limited memory (something like two weeks for non-subscribers). Since Arcamax links do not indicate the date, it took a bit of detective work to find the comic that Dave had intended:
… Here’s what Dave wrote: “It seems the joke is supposed to be that the teenagers are so glued to their phones that they need to check the weather app to find out that they’re being rained on. But, it’s perfectly reasonable in that situation to check the forecast or the radar to see how long it’s going to last. And then there’s no joke. Or there’s something IDU.“
Coincidentally, Chemgal submitted this recent Zits strip as a CIDU, asking, “Just what is supposed to be in that contract?“
… P.S. I don’t have the slightest clue as to “What?“, but I have a pretty good idea as to “Why?“: Friends of ours here in Germany had photovoltaic panels installed under a “lease to own” agreement that will take 15 years for them to complete.
P.P.S. (+) The moral of the story is not to trust Arcamax links for submissions. Using Arcamax links for embedding images in comments is even worse, because the image will disappear later. If you have no other option, at least mention the publication date.
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?
… 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:
… 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:
… 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!”
And I still maintain that the ugly Internet phenomenon of “trolling” started being called that from a metaphor on the fishing practice (dragging a baited hook behind a quiet small boat), and not the Scandinavian bridge-dwelling threateners.
Are we done with Bizarro for this post? Never say so!
I was preparing to protest that the expression is traditionally “strait and narrow” — which would be preferable despite its redundancy. The pattern of redundancy in rhetorical pairs remains hale and hearty, though some may wish it null and void.
But no! The useful sources recognize only “straight and narrow”, with just a nod to the echoes of “strait”. Here’s Etymonline f’ristance [in entry for straight (adj.2) = “conventional,” especially “heterosexual,” 1941]:
probably suggested by the stock phrase straight and narrowpath or way, “course of conventional morality and law-abiding behavior” (by 1842), which is based on a misreading of Matthew vii.14 (where the gate is actually strait); another influence seems to bestrait-laced.
Thanks much to Powers for sharing this pair of recent strips, with very similar jokes. (Further striking that they were adjacent on his local paper’s comics page!) … Oh, and pretty good jokes to boot.
Reader Mike Pollock offers a “juxtaposition via T.A.R.D.I.S.” Perusing this Saturday Evening Post comics selection page, Mike thought the way the weather forecast lingo was handled in the two Stan Hunt panels here (from 1950 and 1955) was reflected in the very recent Zits below them.
“Small-craft warnings are being displayed from Cape Hatteras to Sandy Hook.” Stan Hunt September 30, 1950“Try to think of it, dear, as simply a low-pressure system extending from The Great Lakes region into Ohio and eastward to the Atlantic States trapped between two areas to high pressure that…” Stan Hunt September 3, 1955
And with our editorial eyes opened to this idea, we were quick to note this Life on Earth: