Sale Sale Sale

 

What do they call this where you're from? I kinda want to go to one and get a landscape painting for cheap and then paint a dinosaur into the picture and proudly hang it somewhere. 

Explanation: When you sell your old stuff on your property, it could be called a yard sale or a rummage sale or a garage sale. Possibly other names for it exist - please let me know if you know of any. 

Text:
M: There's a yard sale a few streets down from us.
L: Shall we go rummage about in someone's garage? 

Mannette

 

Happy Birthday to my niece!
My little dude, you are convinced of your friend's name just like your sister is convinced of her friend Faniel's name (it's actually Nathanael). But you seem to know the M is not really there. Someday you'll say their names correctly. Someday. 

Text:
Title: Annette
O: mmm-mmm-Mannette starts with A!
L: Yes, but also no. 

Wrong Gas

 

Trying to explain to my kid that we have different names for how the gas exits our body... Never thought I'd have that conversation. The joy of being a parent - so many unexpected conversations. 

Text:
R: *toot*
O: You burped in your pants!
R: *confused* ?

Jurassic Names Part 2

Thankfully I did not need to re-draw my banner since I had it for the earlier comic. Also, I realized after making this that the DNA was extracted from a mosquito not gnat in the amber. Whoops.

Explanation: Terry, Rory, Amber, and Nat are all normal names. Pterry, Roary, and Gnat are not normal names. Amber fits in both categorize in this context.

*did you see this posted last week? No you didn't, because I surely would not forget to schedule and just straight-up post a comic. Surely, I would not do such a thing and I'm gonna make my blog agree with me.

Text:
Banner: WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH
A: There are my kids - Pterry and Roary.
B: Wonderful! My kids are Amber and Gnat. 

Jurassic Names Part 1

 

Well, that's one opinion. Also, I took far too long trying to make that banner look like the one in the first Jurassic Park movie that falls down as the T-Rex roars in the atrium. 

Explanation: Terry and Rory are fairly normal names. Pterry sounds like the name of a pterodactyl and Roary sounds like a loud child.

Text:
Banner: WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH
A: Why so sad?
B: He said I'm not a real dino fan since I didn't name my kids Pterry and Roary.
A: ... How pterrible. 

Cinderella vs Encanto

 

I didn't realize that the name has been used in two different movies until my kids pointed it out. Now I'm trying to think of other names that have been reused but I'm coming up blank. There are so many movies, surely they aren't all unique. But they have a lot of specific names like Cinderella and Snow White and such. Well, Prince Charming is used a few times I believe. But is it really, or do I just not remember the guy's name because the princess is the main character of the story? 

Explanation: Bruno is the name of the hound dog in Cinderella (1950). Bruno is also one of the uncles in Encanto (2021). 

Text:
Title: In our Cinderella Era
Music: We don't talk about Bruno - No no No ...
R: The DOG?!
O: *shocked*
L: Disney reused a name? I guess it has been 70 years.

Prince of Cinderella

 

I'm thankful my parents did not give me 11 middle names. That would be a bit excessive, but if you look up the names of royals then you will see this is an actual thing with at least European royalty. 
This is inspired by the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical version of Cinderella. We watched it with my kids because it's very low peril - no evil cat (which is the scary part for my little ones). And the 1965 version is honestly delightful. A very chill movie for your viewing pleasure. 
Explanation: In the musical, there is a song titled "The Prince is Giving a Ball" (you should watch it on YouTube to get a feel for the movie) and the prince's full name is given. His parents also have similarly lengthy names. It's a royal thing. In most adaptations of Cinderella, her prince is known as Prince Charming. 

Text:
E: My name is Ella, but my stepfamily calls me Cinderella.
CRWVCAFRLHGJ: My name is Christopher Rupert Windermere Vladimir Carl Alexander François Reginald Lancelot Herman Gregory James, but people call me Charming. 

Potato Chip Cooking Methods

 

This one came to me when my brother was eating a bag of hand cooked potato chips. Please note in my comic the names of the chips - I am proud of the branding.

Text:
A: I sell hand cooked potato chips. *holding po-tay-to chip bag*
B: Well I sell foot cooked potato chips. *holding po-tah-to chip bag*
A: ew.

Shopping on Target

 

The joys of parenting in the potty training phase. No, this is not a true story - I would not do that to my daughter (and really it would be to myself as the one who would be on cleanup). The true part of the story is where my son sees things in the store and calls out their names so I say "we have that at home" and move on. He now says it back to me (while laughing) when I mention what's on the list and I have to say, "no, we don't have it at home and that is why we're at the story, my dude." 

Text:
L: We are only going to get what we need as we shop.
O: Goldfish!
L: No, we have Goldfish at home.
R: Potty!!!
L: We have potties at home!

Canoodle

 

Congrats to my little brother getting married today!
I just really want to watch this get pitched on Shark Tank. I believe in it. I haven't done any of the science but surely it could be done. 

Explanation: A small thin boat is a canoe. If you made one out of pool noodles, you could mash the names together and get canoodle. Which is a word for something that is not a pool noodle boat. 

Text:
S: We used the material in pool noodles to make a small thin boat - it's a canoodle! 
I: *facepalm* 

Carson and Family

 

My brother came up with this one when I was telling him about these kid-sized chairs I got for free but they had names embroidered on them (one of which was Carson) so I put some iron-on patches over the names and presto no more not-my-kid's-names! They looks really nice, the butterfly chair and the dino chair. 

Explanation: Carson is a normal name but also a compound word of vehicle (car) plus child (son). Another name that could follow this pattern would be Traindaughter (and Planechild in the mouseover).

Text:
A: These are my kids, Carson and Traindaughter.
B: *silent confusion*
C+T: *silent resignation* 

First Word

 

Any day now I'm sure Ori will say his first dinosaur name. Robin, who's nearly 3, has been learning dinosaur names and it's super cute to hear her say 'patasaurus or pterodactyl or really any of them. She's at the stage where she points at literally everything (it seems) and asks "this one?" meaning "what is this called?" and so I've been trying to get her to say all the dinosaur names as we have numerous dinosaurs about the house (books, figurines, magnets, ...).

Explanation: Most kids have "dada" as their first D word, and also usually their first word. 

Text:
O: D-d-d-
P: Is he going to say-
O: Diplodocus!

Super Babies

 

A wild Oriole appears! I believe this is another one that I wrote for Robin but it hung out in my to-be-drawn folder for long enough to be applicable to Ori rather than her. I imagine this is a group of moms meeting up after getting their babies from Sunday morning nursery. 

Text:
L: If your kids were superheroes, what would their names be?
A: Super Pooper - she can't be contained!
B: Clog Buster - who you gonna call?!

Science Perfumes

Happy late birthday to my nephew and early anniversary to my sister and brother-in-law!

There's a joke about the opposite of formaldehyde being casualdejekyll, which a friend of mine said sounds like perfume names, and here we are. 

Explanation: Formaldehyde is a compound that I thought was used to preserve the specimens in high school biology dissection labs, but after reading the wiki pages I'm not seeing that use so *shrug* it's a compound with many uses. The joke is if you break up the name you see the words "formal" and "Hyde", and the opposites of those are "casual" and "Jekyll". 

Slow Fast

 

So "Pokee" sounds like "poky" as in "The Poky Little Puppy" which is an excellent Little Golden Book, and "Xpress" is a stylized form of "express" which means "faster than usual" like express shipping which can cost orders of magnitude more than the item you're buying. So I thought the restaurant name was humorous. Maybe they meant it as a pun - there are a number of restaurants around me that have, if not puns, plays on words in their names.

Text:
M: There's a Pokee Xpress - want to get lunch?
L: Haha, slow fast. 

ABC Book

 So we have this baby book and it's literally just A B C - no words or numbers to muddle up the message. There is a cartoony animal on each page, but it's not an animal that starts with the letter on said page - they seemed to have been picked at random. We also have a 1 2 3 book, but it actually counts up to 10. But the first three numbers are on the cover, meaning that the first page starts with 4. 

Update: I have made an Instagram page! But I'm still going to posting my comics here. I have changed my template size to be Instagram-friendly, so my new comics will be in the right format and will get posted over there as well as here. This should happen in a few weeks - I would like to finish out my already-created comics here, but I might mix in some Instagram-sized ones to see how they look over there. I'm also switching to using my kids' nicknames instead of real names, so you'll see Robin (gold crown) and Ori (silver crown) now in my comments. 

Text:
M: Does he have the ABC book?
L: You mean an alphabet book?
M: No, this one is just three pages. 
O: *holding baby book*

States Not United

This comic was inspired by current events, when that Wagner fellow marched towards Russia instead of Ukraine but then calmed down and it was all confusing? Who knows what the state of things will be by the time this comic posts. But I think of all the USA state names, Maryland is a solid contender for a new former-Russian country. Maybe Virginia, too? I feel like the states named after people (not Washington probably) are possibilities. So Carolina? Not north or south, just Carolina. And now I'm thinking through all the state names in a way I never have before.

Text:
A: What's on your mind?
B: I think that if countries want to break away from Russia, they should follow the example of Georgia and name themselves after USA states.
A: That's... a... interesting thought.

And They Never Learned Each Other's Names

 

So I confess that there was a guy in my previous neighborhood who had a dog names Jasper (like one of the foundations of the New Jerusalem, per the owner) and every time I saw them walking I always remembered the dog's name but totally forgot the owner's name. For whatever reason, it can be easier to remember cute kid's and pet's names but adult's names just go in one ear and out the other. 

Text:
Title: And They Never Learned Each Other's Names
M: This is Zoey. (walking a dog)
L: Aw, this is Lucy! (holding hand of toddler)

Nameless Wife of Noah

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! And Happy Birthday to my niece!

Explanation: In the Biblical account about Noah, his sons' names are Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The phrase "such a ham" means someone who over-acts it seems? It's a weird phrase and now that I've looked into it I don't feel better about it. This comic is highlighting that parents tend to mix up their kids' names. I remember hearing a song a few years ago where the singer bemoaned that his mom would call him a string of all the kids' and pets' names. It's the classic kid-in-a-large-family experience but I guess I'll find out if just having two kids means I'll still mix up their names. 

Text:
NW: You are such a ham!
J: Mom, I'm Japheth.

Draw a Fowl

Happy Birthday to my Sister!!!

How are your brackets doing? I had to look up to see that yes, there is one more week of the madness. I made a March Madness bracket in my standard way which is to say I picked the names I liked and when in doubt I looked at the seeding and tried to pick a handful of upsets but as usual I have UConn winning it because maybe this will be the year. I am scheduling this post from a time when UConn is still in the running, and I hope they are still in the running when this post is live because that will mean my bracket is at least one quarter happy. 

Explanation: In basketball, sometimes a player will intentionally foul another as a strategy move. "Draw" can mean "trace or produce (a line or mark) on a surface" or "be the cause of (a specified response)" and wow I know what both versions mean but I had to Google it because getting the words for the concept was not working for me. "Foul" and "fowl" sound the same but are clearly different things. 

Text:
P: Not sure why you wanted this, but here's the robin I sketched.
C: I TOLD YOU TO DRAW A FOUL!!!
P: Oh, like a duck or loon?