Comments on: Late Again

By: J-L

J-L — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:19:37 +0000

It’s also possible that the comic expects you to think that a stranded man on a desert island would do crazy things (like befriend a volleyball), but to hire his own whale?

Now that’s crazy, but on a totally different level of crazy.

By: J-L

J-L — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:17:42 +0000

I’m thinking that this joke derives its humor from the question “What’s going on on the other side of the world?”

In other words, when you think of a man stranded on a desert island, you normally think of a man who is sitting at the base of a tree and looking out for ships and avoiding sharks.

But what if that wasn’t the case? What if a man managed to set up a time-clock and hire a whale as an employee? We’d experience the same kind of shock we have when we see a foreign culture first-hand and discover it is not quite as backwards or primitive as we first thought.

So the comic could be about the culture shock of finding out what stranded men on islands REALLY do all day.

By: assdad

assdad — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:54:39 +0000

He was a cruel demanding boss, who refused to change his lifestyle and decided to abuse the wildlife as he did his employees.

By: Yaniv

Yaniv — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:19:48 +0000

….Maybe the whale’s pregnant?

I don’t know.

I have a dirty mind.:(

By: Frank

Frank — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:29:07 +0000

There have been a few mass wale beachings in the news but …

By: Rusty

Rusty — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:27:19 +0000

My best guess is it is a play on the idea that the guy is “beached” on an island, and is trading places with a “beached whale”

By: Dave Van Domelen

Dave Van Domelen — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:24:50 +0000

Devildan, it’s a timeclock. The kind people still use some places to punch in at work, although computer sign-in has largely replaced ‘em.

By: Elyrest

Elyrest — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:28:42 +0000

When I saw this one yesterday I thought it was just another take on a guy stuck on an island comic. These have been around so long that most cartoonists have done some variation of it. My take was that the guy had been there so long that it was part of his routine that the whale swam past. In the comic world this morphs into there being a time clock for them to punch in and out. Didn’t get a laugh, but I understood where it was coming from.

By: devildan

devildan — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:12:21 +0000

Don’t forget that Jonah traveled in the whale: he was dumped in the middle of the sea but was burped up onto land. This Jonah (but why is he dressed as a castaway, on the other hand?) probably commutes by whale everyday.

But, then why does the clock look so odd, with the lever? Yup, I’m lost at sea here.

By: Alexandra Erin

Alexandra Erin — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:44:44 +0000

Matthew, I enjoy and appreciate a great deal of surreality for its own sake, but that’s not the “vibe” I get off this. I look at it and I feel like it’s supposed to be funny. Maybe if I were more familiar with the artist’s work I wouldn’t be thinking this, but I’m left feeling like there’s a “great” joke behind it that maybe doesn’t work so well outside the artist’s head.