FoxTrot by Bill Amend for January 05, 2014

Doric, ionic… what’s the difference? (Seriously. What’s the difference? I really don’t know.)

You look at the top of the column. Plain: Ionic. Fancy: Doric. Hilariously over-the-top too-fancy-to-take-seriously: Corinthian.

Or snowmen bowing to a snowwoman.

@daDoctahPlain: DoricScrolls: IonicFlowery crazy fanciness: Corinthian

Aren’t the Elgin marbles in London?

So if Jason is a science major, should he not have done ionic columns?

How did they know before Internet?

OK, folks, you noticed it isn’t falling down, it has a funny saying across the top, the wrong columns; did you notice the SNOW shovels in their hands?

Thank you Mr. Amend…for making me think…and making me look up the difference between Doric and Ionic…and making me laugh all the more.

thanks Opus, I guess it makes me a was a dork!

I’m thinking Jason bet Eileen that he’d beat her on some math test and didn’t, and the stakes were that the loser had to build a snow monument to the winner… and she’s rejecting the monument because he got the columns wrong, so now he has to start over.

Whoops, the monument reveals that the bet was likely who’d get the higher score on their fall report card. Pay attention to details, tcreole!

I’m just impressed A,end took the time to get his facts on the columns straight…but I don’t know why, he’s proven plenty of times in the past that he has an eye for details like this.

Majestic comic today. And Linus would be proud!"

I thought that the geek boys would have had more attention to detail – we ARE known for that, after all. Even though I would have had to look up all the details to make replica of Parthenon (and would do it in pastry, not snow) I’d get it right.

Since when do nerds accept anything they see on Wikipedia?

Gotta love that Eileen Jacobsen across the top of it—he really did a snow job on her.

Careful. I’ve found more than one mistake on Wikipedia.

That’s a snow sculpture, by the way.

Jason should just change the Wikipedia entry — easier than building a new monument!

You believe wikipedia?

Did they cotract Calvin to do the snowmen? They are just his style!

There seems to be a joke here connected with Jason thinking he can win the bet because he’s a math ace. Could someone please explain it?

Defeated once again, eh Jason?

Hey, I learned the Three Orders from “A Child’s History of the World” by the bloody-brilliant V. M. Hillyer. The three names (“Doric”, “Ionic”, and “Corinthian”) are references to different regions in Greece, just as you might call a house in America “New England Colonial”, “Dutch Colonial”, or “Southern Colonial”. Doric is plain. Ionic has the scroll-ish capitals (tops), and the fluting (the scooped-out vertical lines on the columns, themselves), and Corinthian is all flowers and stuff. (There is a legend that the Corinthian order was based on a child’s grave with flowers piled on it.)

And, as has been pointed out, the strip is showing Ionic, but the actual Parthenon is, indeed, Doric.

Ah, yes, the occasionally reliable Wikipedia.

Partially true, they are Ionic on the inside, which was not uncommon.

ROFL! I had to learn this in college. To me it’s hillarious

She used Wikipedia, Jason. There’s a good chance you’re right.

Actually, Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, Eileen.

I just realized, it says Fall report card goddess, eileen jacobson

When did Eileen get smarter?

Really? They actually do look ionic…

But he built ionic what?