Maybe It Would Have Made More Sense If He’d Said ”Catsup”
Cidu Bill on Feb 17th 2010
I had no problem with this until I got to “The Origin of Ketchup.”
Filed in Argyle Sweater, Bill Bickel, CIDU, Scott Hilburn, comic strips, comics, humor | 19 responses so far
Marshal Feb 17th 2010 at 12:12 am 1
The Ketchup is the life. - Count Tomato
She appears to be donating blood (Ketchup)
and her husband fainted. Or something like that.
.
Bill Zilch Feb 17th 2010 at 12:20 am 2
I think they really meant “How ketchup is made” as opposed to “How ketchup was invented.”
Lola Feb 17th 2010 at 12:23 am 3
It doesn’t explain that this is the “Origin” of ketchup but it’s kind of like free range eggs. In this scenario, no tomatoes were harmed. It’s almost like they are saying this is the way tomatoes reproduce, like the depiction is the shemato in labor.
I’ve got nothing.
mkilby Feb 17th 2010 at 12:53 am 4
There are two mild jokes comepeting for attention here. One is the fainting tomato scene. The quip in the caption is separate, but was spoiled somewhat by the artist’s choice of “origin” instead of “source”.
David N Feb 17th 2010 at 02:02 am 5
Philosophically and morally, I am against tomatoes that wear neckties but no pants. Call it a pet peeve. Just can’t get past it. But the tie is placed rather strategically, I’ll give ‘em that.
As for “Origin”, I’m with everyone else so far. Hard to be the origin if the fainting happens a lot.
jjmcgaffey Feb 17th 2010 at 03:54 am 6
I suspect he drew the tomato giving…um, ketchup, and then wasn’t sure anybody would recognize the setting. So he added the fainting (because that happens all the time at blood drives…it does?). Then, yeah, the mischosen word in the caption.
George P Feb 17th 2010 at 05:34 am 7
I agree that the word choice was confusing, especially for those of us raised on “origin” stories in comic books. I got to “origin” meaning “source” almost immediately, but I wouldn’t have had to if “source” had been used in the first place.
I agree, too, that the fainting, and the word balloon, look tacked on to the original (ha) joke.
Cindi Feb 17th 2010 at 07:25 am 8
This is an EEWWW for me!
Rammy M Feb 17th 2010 at 12:45 pm 9
@Bill #2
I second (third fourth fifth) that
Elyrest Feb 17th 2010 at 12:58 pm 10
I understood the comic when I read it, but I thought the fainting male tomato just made it confusing. You have a female (note purse) on a medical table. Male is fainting - often happens during childbirth. The “Origin of Ketchup” is the only thing that helped make sense of the comic. I admit that source most likely makes more sense, but the fainting guy is what screwed it up for me.
Rick Feb 17th 2010 at 02:29 pm 11
This is a case of not knowing when to stop. If you remove the bottom “The Origin of Ketchup” it starts to work. There needs to be a bed/table that the fainting tomato just got off of to make sense of him. Throw in a few more Heinz bottles and there you go.
And pants. I blame Ziggy for the pantless trend.
Kevin A Feb 17th 2010 at 03:08 pm 12
I was a big fan of superhero origin comics in the 70s and also similar real-life stories. I think “origin” works better here. It’s implying the early way that tomato “blood” was extracted for the uses of the Heinz company. It may not even be ketchup yet. That use may have been discovered later. Like when that guy tasted aspartame for the first time. It certainly is far different from the way we harvest the primary ingredient of ketchup today, and so I feel “source” doesn’t fit at all.
J-L Feb 17th 2010 at 04:14 pm 13
“The Origin of Ketchup” is indeed the wrong caption.
The correct caption should read: “Frog Ophthalmology”.
turquoise cow Feb 17th 2010 at 06:39 pm 14
I’m okay with tomatoes not wearing pants - tomatoes don’t wear pants. I’m opposed to tomatoes wearing ties, as they do not wear those. If tomatoes do wear ties, then they should wear shirts. This tomato has a collar, but not a shirt, or pants, or shoes. And why is the male generic tomato wearing a tie while the supposedly male doctor tomato is wearing nothing and the female tomato is also wearing nothing? If anything, I would think that the doctor tomato would be wearing a lab coat, a tie, or perhaps a stethoscope to indicate his profession. (I don’t know how a tomato would wear a stethoscope). I guess glasses were supposed to indicate that the doctor is “smart” because only smart people (or tomatoes?) wear glasses.
I’m probably thinking too much about it. I’ll stop now.
mkilby Feb 18th 2010 at 02:20 am 15
@ Elyrest (10) - If the cartoonist had really meant the “purse” to go in the direction of “childbirth”, then the caption would have been “The Birth of Ketchup”, the collection method wouldn’t have been intravenous, but rather something else entirely unpublishable, and this would have been the biggest EEWWW of all time.
Elyrest Feb 18th 2010 at 03:38 pm 16
mkilby (15) - So sorry to put that image in your head. Of course now it’s stuck in mine. You’re right EEWWW!
Pinny Feb 18th 2010 at 06:59 pm 17
“The Source of Tomato Sauce”
(For NYers like me “source” and “sauce” are homophones.)
Morris Keesan Feb 22nd 2010 at 08:53 am 18
turquoise cow #14: If that were a doctor, I guess it would be wearing a stethoscope and a lab coat. But when was the last time you saw a doctor at a blood[/ketchup] donation site? I’ve always had my arm punctured by nurses. And since the tomato who’s speaking isn’t wearing a necktie[*], that probably means it’s a shemato, which would match the stereotype of nurses (and my experience of blood-drive nurses).
[* Am I the only one who read the discussion above of necktie vs. no pants, and thought of Alice and Humpty Dumpty, and the confusion over whether Humpty was wearing a cravat or a belt?]
Todd Feb 23rd 2010 at 03:49 am 19
I wonder if maybe the artist had originally intended it to be “birth”, then realized that he couldn’t do that without getting in a lot of trouble, so settled for catsup as giving blood.
(Firefox does not like that spelling of catsup. It will take ketchup, and even catchup, though.)