Comics I Don’t Understand

LOL-February 23

Cidu Bill on Feb 23rd 2009

Filed in Arlo and Janis, Bill Bickel, Etch-a-Sketch, Jimmy Johnson, Leigh Rubin, Mark Parisi, Off the Mark, Rubes, basketball, comic strips, comics, humor, lol, xkcd | 30 responses so far

30 Responses to “LOL-February 23”

Paul Feb 23rd 2009 at 02:44 pm 1

I don’t get the Arlo & Janis one. Anyone care to explain?
Arthur Feb 23rd 2009 at 02:49 pm 2

Paul, he’s pointing to a statue of a nude.
Naomi Feb 23rd 2009 at 05:32 pm 3

Re: Arlo - Just to add to the humor, I get the impression from his expressions in the earlier panels and the last one that Arlo is really bored, and is just trying to stir up trouble.
Pete Feb 23rd 2009 at 05:32 pm 4

I don’t get it either. So the nude statue looks like her. What’s the joke?
Jeff Lichtman Feb 23rd 2009 at 06:02 pm 5

Note the crowd. He’s saying, “Hey, everyone! This is what my wife looks like naked!”
Jack Feb 23rd 2009 at 08:31 pm 6

I wonder if that pattern showing right before the asystole is a shockable rhythm.
Elliott Feb 23rd 2009 at 08:54 pm 7

In Arlo’s defense, I would submit that he’s oblivious to the crowd, and to Janis’ humiliation. But for the first time, as she has dragged him through the museum, he’s found something to which can relate.

Or the epitome of “I don’t know anything about art, but I know what I like!”
Mitch4 Feb 24th 2009 at 12:50 am 8

There is a story about 19th Century British man of letters and art critic John Ruskin (whose marriage was annulled), saying that he was shocked into disgust and impotence by the discovery of his wife’s pubic hair — his only prior acquaintance with totally nude women being from Greek statuary, which were in this regard not anatomically correct.
Chuck Feb 24th 2009 at 03:45 am 9

Removal of pubic hair has been common for a long time. I’m sure those statues were correct representations of the models.
Annie Benson Feb 24th 2009 at 05:02 am 10

If Mr. Ruskin let some pubic hair stop him then his genes must not have wanted to progate themselves very badly. To be fair, though, he was proabably also put off by the fact that his wife’s skin wasn’t cold and unyeilding to his touch in the manner of marble.
Powers Feb 24th 2009 at 07:34 am 11

Huge points off to Mark Parisi for not taking 5 seconds to look up André Cassagne’s name.
Powers Feb 24th 2009 at 07:34 am 12

Er, that should be André Cassagnes’ name. =)
Pete Feb 24th 2009 at 10:41 am 13

If he’d given a caption saying “the final moments of André Cassagnes” then for most people it would have been a CIDU
Ian Osmond Feb 24th 2009 at 11:11 am 14

Maybe it’s just me, but I think the Arlo and Janis one is sweet.

“Hey, Janis! You look like a Greek goddess of love!”
J-L Feb 24th 2009 at 12:42 pm 15

Am I the only one who doesn’t understand the dog cartoon?

I’m a bit confused about the “Usually, just the mere suggestion of…” clause. Does that imply that in this case it’s not enough to close the sale? And if so, then why isn’t it enough?
Elyrest Feb 24th 2009 at 01:04 pm 16

J-L, the dog’s mere suggestion is that he is merely suggesting that he’ll come in and piddle all over the lady’s carpet. The cartoon is saying that he doesn’t need to do anything more than to hint about what he’ll do to get a sale. You may be over-thinking this one.
The Ploughman Feb 24th 2009 at 01:45 pm 17

The post has a “football” tag, apparently for the XKCD. I feel compelled to point out that the game featured must be basketball, as the other team would be scoring six points at a time in the absence of an opponent.
CIDU Bill Feb 24th 2009 at 01:49 pm 18

Duh. You’re right of course, Ploughman. I guess I was laughing too hard to read it carefully (and to be fair, it’s hard to differentiate between stick-figures in football uniforms and stick-figures in basketball uniforms)
Mark Jones Feb 24th 2009 at 02:52 pm 19

Huh…I didn’t even pay attention to the scores, I naturally assumed it was football.
Pinny Feb 24th 2009 at 03:22 pm 20

The word “halftime” being used so soon after the Superbowl in the XKCD is probably the reason some of us seemed to have identified the sport as football.
J-L Feb 24th 2009 at 05:17 pm 21

Thanks, Elyrest, your explanation makes sense to me.

I guess the artist was trying to convey the joke that a dog salesman has a specific advantage over his human competitors, but the verbose caption kind of threw me off.
Lola Feb 24th 2009 at 09:48 pm 22

This is a take on a common gambit of door to door vacuum cleaner salesmen who would throw some dirt onto your carpet and then demonstrate how well their machine worked. So Elyrest has got it dead to rights that this dog would supply his own “fresh” pet stains….something most people would be quick to avoid. Really, in this case, it’s a shakedown.
David N Feb 25th 2009 at 12:30 am 23

No, the game is football. The other team went for 2 - why not, the other team wasn’t even on the field. Plus, in basketball the ball is dead after a score until the other team inbounds it. No team to inbound means no game.
Jack Feb 25th 2009 at 09:23 am 24

What game it is is ambiguous. It could also be basketball. I doubt that the sound would carry that well all the way across a football field, the sidelines, and into a locker room. If the other team was not present, after so many seconds of not inbounding it, I believe the ball would turn back over to the other team for delay of game or some such.

Or it could have been a two-point conversion after a touchdown. The only thing is, I don’t see how a football game could continue in this manner: once the scoring team kicked it off to the other team that wasn’t there, they technically wouldn’t be able to touch the ball until the nonexistant-on-the-field other team touched it…hence, they would just stand there and stare at the ball indefinitely while the clock ran down…but I think that football (and basketball too) probably has some rule that the other team must be on the field/court to commence with the game.
RaleighRob Feb 25th 2009 at 10:07 am 25

The last one would have been cuter if the screen had two big white knobs on it.
Bob Feb 25th 2009 at 11:30 am 26

Jack - on a kick-off in football, the ball is live after it goes 10 years. The kicking team could recover the ball, and the game could continue. As noted, in basketball, if the team doesn’t inbound the ball (after a basket by the opposing team) within 5 seconds, it is a violation and the ball is turned over to the other team… and the game could continue. In reality, the referees would forfeit the game to the team still on the playing surface.
Elyrest Feb 25th 2009 at 01:10 pm 27

“the ball is live after it goes 10 years”

This is a REALLY long game.
Pete Feb 25th 2009 at 03:20 pm 28

Look, people, it’s a joke. It doesn’t have to make sense. Don’t try to make sense of the game rules.
The Ploughman Feb 26th 2009 at 05:02 pm 29

But Pete, if we don’t analyze it here, who will? WHO?
Lost in A**2 Feb 26th 2009 at 10:08 pm 30

Well, some might point that there are five players and a pep-talker,
and draw a few conclusions. But then, there is the alt-text:

img src=”http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/pep_talk.png”
title=”Listen! They said a team of chess players coached by
someone with no understanding of basketball would never
be competitive in the NBA! Well, it turns out they’re pretty
perceptive.”
alt=”Pep Talk”