Missing man formation

Another great choice is The King Henry Tapes by Richard Raley. It’s a take on HP, but the magical kid from a dysfunctional family is a juvenile delinquent with a foul mouth. One of my favorite series.

Yeah, I think that’s a problem with quite a few of Larson’s comics. A lot of it was based on tropes and stereotypes that were more accepted at the time. I’m gen x, so I get the humor, and found it funny back then, but with hindsight some of them were questionable if not outright offensive. In this case, however, he is ridiculing the cavalry for their hubris, when they should have had a better plan against the combined native forces. Custer screwed up and died as a result. If anything, it’s saying the natives were much smarter.

They won the Battle of Little Bighorn, also known as Custer’s Last Stand, yes.

They’re saying “Neener Neener, you can’t catch me,” and from what we know about history, the Natives accepted the challenge and won. I’m not sure how else to explain it. You might not find it funny, and that’s okay, but it’s clearly a reference to that battle.

Look up Custer’s Last Stand. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn

Larson did a few referencing this. Basically, Custer and his cavalry were soundly defeated by the combined native tribes.

No gnus is good gnus.

Cows are often described as content, with phases like “chewing contentedly on its cud.”

Families would take a car trip. Once upon a time, there were no electronics available to keep kids occupied. We literally had nothing to do in the car except sit still for hours. Kids being kids would get antsy, and frequently would start teasing, fighting, roughhousing, pinching, poking, etc. The driver, usually Dad, would yell at the kids to stop. “Don’t make me stop this car,” and other similar warnings. This panel uses that common (at the time) setting but with the absurd twist of an actual torture device.

Larson’s drawing skills are not the greatest, and this forced perspective is difficult to achieve in the single panel, I think. The kids are in the back, either on the back seat or maybe in the cargo area with the seats down. Yeah, the proportions are off. It’s about the absurd situation more than the artwork.

Tom Bombadil

Okay, I added a few links to my comment!

I homeschooled my kid k-12. When I started, I had no idea how many religious hs-ers there were. I used a secular curriculum, and never even thought about teaching anything regarding religion one way or another. Once I started looking around at all the creationist curricula out there–yikes.

Anyhoo, long story short, my son went on to a college degree (he actually started college classes online at 15–one of the perks of hs-ing for us), and he’s an atheist. Secular homeschoolers do exist!

ETA some links–these are a few secular homeschool curricula. There’s a lot more out there, but this is the majority of what I used through the years:

https://www.calverthomeschool.com/

https://www.oakmeadow.com/

https://www.keystoneschoolonline.com/

https://www.thinkwell.com/ (Primarily math–the professor that does most of the math instruction is wonderful.)

When I sit in a chair and cross my legs, I tuck the foot of the top leg behind the ankle of my bottom leg, so the legs are kind of wrapped around each other.

The uniforms suggest that this is a (fictional) scene from The Battle of Little Bighorn, also called Custer’s Last Stand. General Custer and his cavalry were soundly defeated by the combined Indian tribes with whom they were battling. The note on the arrow suggests that it was sent by one of the Indian warriors. Rather than heed the very graphic warning, they chose to mock the spelling.

I don’t recall anything like that, but possibly. I think the comic is just playing around with the phrase itself, but using frogs to make it absurd.

Fwiw, here’s the definition for anyone unfamiliar:

vive la difference exclamation /ˌviːv lɑː ˌdɪfəˈrɑːns/ (from French, humorous)

​used to show that you think it is good that there is a difference between two people or things, especially a difference between men and women

They are a couple of demons or devils, in hell. Their demon dog is on fire, which is probably a common occurrence in their firey realm, therefore someone needs to “put the dog out,” which is a play on words–put out as in extinguish the fire. As opposed to a similar scene which would be a normal couple in their living room, and the wife says it’s husband’s turn to “put the dog out,” as in, let the dog outside. It’s all an absurd pun.

I’d say many were referencing something that would have been familiar to most readers in the 80s, but perhaps not now, unless you are either old enough to remember, or know a lot of trivia. For example, My Dinner With Andre came out in 1981, and this comic in 1982, so most readers then probably had at least heard of the movie and could get the joke.

Yes. From The Reptile Farm, which is missing their star attraction, Big Al. Given that name, he’s probably a large alligator.

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