There are five-string cellos, and there are left-handed cellists, Charlie Chaplin among them. And there may be, somewhere, a left-handed five-string cellist. But come on.
If there is an in-joke here, it remains very inner. To the average comics reader, or to me, today’s Hi and Lois will look merely goofy. I made a few improvements in about
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[“Very inner”: after the poet Ted Berrigan: “There’s a great inner logic to this poem, which I try to keep very inner.”]
comments: 8
And though the boy is young, I doubt that he needed his mother to explain that Dot is learning to play the cello. Clearly, that's already painfully obvious to him.
Yes, they often seem to “reinforce” the day’s joke, as in this recent strip.
It looks like she might be holding her bow upside-down as well. That sure looks like a frog where the tip should be.
Yeah, it seems to me that the artist is simply not familiar enough with stringed insturments (I play the Viola, so my musical neighbors are 'Cellos). Elaine Fine is right that the bow seems backwards, among the many other errors. To be fair, when a student is first learning a stringed instrument, it DOES tend to sound like someone is murdering a cat. The strip might have been funnier, though, if the "terrible sound" had come from somewhere off-stage, and the boy spent a panel or two searching the house, trying to resolve the mystery before the truth is revealed.
Yes, that would make things funnier. If you like thinking of ways to improve comic strips, Hi and Lois is for you.
In case you don’t know Elaine F. is my wife. She’s a violist too. Sometimes she and your mom turn up in comments on the same post.
One more thing: Why is the "Skritch" sound coming out from her back, rather than from the cello?
Wow, another viola! And an Elaine, no less. It's always great to meet a fellow strings-player.
I bet it is fun when "both" Elaines post on the same thread, haha.
Right or left, skritch is skritch,
And hearing lessons makes me itch.
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