Moon

Cidu Bill on Dec 31st 2009

moon.png

I don’t understand the moon’s comments in either the second panel or the final panel

Filed in Bill Bickel, CIDU, Jump Start, Robb Armstrong, comic strips, comics, humor | 22 responses so far

22 Responses to “Moon”

  1. Michael W Dec 31st 2009 at 12:17 am 1

    I’ve been thinking this one over for a while, as I was similarly baffled. At first I thought this was (bizarrely for this comic) political commentary - Palin will save the planet!

    But I reconsidered, and I think the key is this: Every Jump Start is predicated on the idea that violence, threats of violence, and aggression are funny (it’s only strayed once or twice, recently with the cop getting ’shot’ which probably wasn’t supposed to be funny.) Often the conflict is only introduced in the last panel.

    With this in mind, I think the answer is this: Earth, Sun, & Moon are having a good time talking, especially about an end to war. Moon (being kind of a tactless jerk) decides to bring politics into the mix. Sarah Palin being such a polarizing figure, it’s clear that there will be no peace, Earth will continue to launch missiles at Moon, etc.

  2. PeterW Dec 31st 2009 at 12:24 am 2

    I figured Moon was changing the subject, because that ain’t happening.

  3. Kate C Dec 31st 2009 at 12:40 am 3

    As for the second panel, I think the moon knows 2010 is going to be even worse than 2009, and doesn’t hold out a lot of hope for the Earth making it through it.

  4. Molly J Dec 31st 2009 at 12:52 am 4

    The first moon comment (about the $50) is, I think, saying “Go ahead and forget 2009. Just don’t include the $50 you borrowed in 2009 when you’re forgetting things about the year.” More or less. I’m not saying it’s funny, but I think that’s what it means.

    As to the Sarah Palin thing, I think that’s moon’s version of “Yeah, right.” As in “Let’s remind ourselves here of what passes for leadership down there.”

  5. paperboy Dec 31st 2009 at 01:52 am 5

    I see at as sheer desperation; he had no punch-line, so he figured just mentioning Sarah Palin would be amusing. (perhaps you’re old enough to remember when “Dan Quayle” served that purpose.)

  6. MarkH Dec 31st 2009 at 03:52 am 6

    I think Molly got the $50 comment right, but I think the final panel is just Moon trying to be a part of the conversation, and not knowing what to say. Notice he asks if Earth’s excited, Sun & Earth then go into a deep(ish) discussion about serious issues… and Moon can’t think what to say, so mentions a Political Biography he’s just read to try and sound intellectual.

    I might have met Moon at a party once, come to think of it.

  7. waferthinmint Dec 31st 2009 at 03:53 am 7

    I believe the great philosophers made ths joke first:

    “Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown and things seem hard or tough and people are stupid, obnoxious or daft and you feel that you’ve had quite enough… Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving and revolving at 900 miles an hour — that’s orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it’s reckoned, a sun that is the source of all our power. The sun and you and me, and all the stars that we can see, are moving at a million miles a day in an outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour of the galaxy we call the Milky Way. Our galaxy itself contains 100 billion stars. It’s 100,000 light-years side-to-side. It bulges in the middle, 16,000 light-years thick but out by us it’s just 3000 light-years wide. We’re 30,000 light-years from galactic central point. We go round every 200 million years and our galaxy is only one of millions of billions in this amazing and expanding universe. The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding in all of the directions it can whiz as fast as it can go, at the speed of light you know — twelve million miles a minute and that’s the fastest speed there is. So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure how amazingly unlikely is your birth. And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space because there’s bugger all down here on Earth”

  8. chuckers Dec 31st 2009 at 04:06 am 8

    I understood the 2nd Moon comment to be, if the Earth was dumb enough to believe that all those things *might* happen, the Earth is probably dumb enough to believe things written in Sarah Palin’s book and be excited about it.

  9. chuckers Dec 31st 2009 at 04:09 am 9

    Here’s waferthinmint’s source:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQu_RRLbVDA

    From the same move that the handle name came from.

  10. Nicole Dec 31st 2009 at 08:38 am 10

    I think the reference in the last panel means that as long as there are people who are like Sarah Palin and who beleive in her diatribes … then those things will never happen

  11. Tim Dec 31st 2009 at 09:20 am 11

    “If you’re really hopeful for all those things to happen, then take a look at this.” I think that’s all there is to it. Enough people agreed for Palin’s book to hit #1 before it was even released.

  12. DifferentPatrick Dec 31st 2009 at 01:59 pm 12

    The second panel, like the title panel, is just a filler for those newspapers that print all three rows. A lot of newspapers throw out the title panel to fit more comics on fewer pages. Because of this, cartoonists often toss in a throw-away joke in the top row with the real joke starting in the second row (which appears as the first row in those newspapers that cram). So it’s non sequitor (or, really, whatever the Latin term is for “does not lead”).

    As to what the second panel means: I agree with Molly J.

    As for the last panel: I agree with Nicole.

  13. Nicole Dec 31st 2009 at 05:54 pm 13

    Tim — you are presenting the logical fallacy that if most people agree, then it must be true. This is demonstrably false. Long ago most people believed the sun traveled around the earth, clearly most people were wrong. I haven’t read Ms. Palin’s book , so I can not comment on the quality of the information contained within its pages. But I can say that saying that most people agree therefore it must be so simply is wrong.

    Also assuming that everyone who bought the book agrees with Ms. Palin’s positions is equally wrong. While you are correct many if not most people who bought the book agree with her, I am sure many bought it to see what she had to say.

  14. paperboy Dec 31st 2009 at 06:01 pm 14

    A sneaky way for corporate groups to bribe politicians is when politicians “write” a book, they buy up copies, legally funneling money into their pockets. Sometimes it pays off (”The Audacity of Hope”), others seem like a long-shot (”Goin’ Rogue”).

  15. Tim Dec 31st 2009 at 07:13 pm 15

    Nicole, as usual, you’re saying something that has no connection with what has gone before it. “You are presenting the logical fallacy that if most people agree, then it must be true”? I didn’t say anything of the sort. I said only that the “moon” was suggesting to the “earth” (in the comic - remember the comic we’re supposed to be commenting on?) that there’s reason to hope in the book.

    While some people bought Palin’s book even though they disagreed with her, I think even you would agree that most of them did.

  16. Nicole Dec 31st 2009 at 08:26 pm 16

    Tim .. If I misinterpreted your statement ” Enough people agreed for Palin’s book to hit #1 before it was even released.” I apologize

    If you reread my last comment you will see that I say exactly that — that most people who bought the book agreed with Ms. Palin

  17. Tim Jan 1st 2010 at 01:12 am 17

    Nicole,
    It’s hard to know exactly how something is intended if you can’t hear any sort of intonation. Apology accepted. Let’s bury the hatchet.

  18. Todd Jan 1st 2010 at 01:55 am 18

    First two panels: The Sun, Earth, and Moon are having a conversation. That’s absurd, but often happens in comics. Even more absurd, the Earth borrowed fifty somethings (probably money) from the Moon.

    The Earth then states his hopes for the new year, one thing which should happen (though the author apparently doesn’t think so), and two things which will only happen after humanity wipes itself out. There’s an uncomfortable silence, and the Moon changes the subject.

  19. Devo Jan 1st 2010 at 09:15 am 19

    The moon’s first comment in panel two is a reference to the fact that we crashed into the moon this year to steal water. The last panel is the moon acknowledging that the earth knows how ridiculous its overly optimistic hopes are, and offers the Sarah Palin book because all conservatives do is cope with, or ignore, real problems, not fix or change them like the earth hopes for. It’s a “If you can’t beat em, join em” joke.

  20. aoeu Jan 1st 2010 at 03:47 pm 20

    Looks to me that the last panel has Moon trying to break an awkward silence, following Earth’s idealism that no one wants to realistically shoot down. I think the $50 thing is just more casual conversation.

  21. bAT L. Jan 2nd 2010 at 02:06 am 21

    I seem to be the only one extremely bothered by the distance they are away from each other. I know it’s just a representation, and that you couldn’t fit the exact distance in a panel and still see the Earth or its moon, and that it doesn’t need to be exact. Still, having the Earth and the moon crammed into the left side of the panels really would have helped.

    Reminds me of this classic comic: http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF041-Sun_Love.gif

  22. Dave in Boston Jan 6th 2010 at 06:55 pm 22

    DifferentParick: I happened to be out of town when this was published, and the paper there (identity omitted to protect the guilty) pruned the *middle* row of this rather than the top. Go figure.

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