Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for August 25, 2010

What figures on the left? All I see are his feet, in the now famous “endo” position!

I know what you mean Nab, it took me a bit to see it too. At first I thought those were aliens walking down the other side of a hill and I couldn’t see how that fit in here. Feet, now that’s funny.

Wishy-washy will, however, make his mark on the planet!

This one took me a while too! Whats up with the super thin ankles?!? He must have been walking for a while…

The inherent problem with taking the path of least resistance is that it can easily lead to your down fall, which is illustrated here, i.e, reach end of easy path and fall down cliff.

Taking the path of least resistance is for the unassertive.

Lightning takes the path of least resistance.. Flowing water takes the path of least resistance.. It’s nature’s law. Hmm

It’s not taking the path of least resistance that’s the problem. It’s thinking ahead enough to realize that the path to the right offers the least resistance because that SPLAT at the end of the left path will stop you cold.

watch that first step. it’s a doozie!

Darwin award winner?

Freefalling………………………… no charge

I don’t see nothing on the left side cept grass.

ISn’t there an Art of War axiom about this? something like: “follow the river, for the water knows where it flows”?

But, the higher you climb, the farther you can fall,…

after 20 foot though, it makes little difference….

unless you have a golden parachutte…

except when it is illigally aquired gold :)

Sun Tszu say: “Stress is the resistance required to keep from b**slapping someone who desperately needs it.” I like the path of least resistance…slap away.

Those are Wiley’s initials: W above the M and some (probably mandatory) information about “dist[ributed] by Universal, UCLA [can’t read the rest]. It has nothing to do with the joke. Jeez! Talk about reading too much into a joke and ruining it!

I mistook the feet and legs for two people. Looked to me like they were dressed in some sort of native African tribal dress with some pointed hats. And the left shoe strings look sort of like pig tails or earrings.

Good thing I’m not an analyst. I’d be looking at data all wrong.

C’mon Nab,,,, Those are just circles and dots indicating movement, common tools of cartoonists as are lines, etc. to get the point across. The subject was walking -right off the cliff.

Didn’t know Wiley read these. I have two questions for him.

a. The Ekbert thing seems very familiar. Or have I been wandering a parallel plane?

b. Danae’s father was once being pursued by a cute young lady from Mom’s shrimp shack. She headed off to Vegas for a bit of insanity.

What ever happened to her?

glen,, She is married and teaching school in Vegas. You are too late!

Of course, we can neither see what’s over the “cliff” nor what’s atop the building, so who’s yet to say which is the better “trip”?

Add me to the list of confused viewers. For the first several minutes I was seeing two towers with satellite dishes on top at the end of the left path. I had to read these comments to get it right.

I perceive things in a quirky way sometimes. When I look at the Batman logo, I usually see a set of choppers with two buck teeth instead of a bat.

Brings to mind the global warming issue…

I too thought it was two guys in pointy hats at first.

What they REALLY are - two one-winged dragonflies toting logs over the edge

Haha, the simplest of cartoons sure flushed you guys out…

thank you for the feet posts. i thought it was two eqyptians on a walk. bearing in mind that there is no knowing what the shoe-guy is doing, other than BASE jumping, it’s a little less vague, but still “i don’t get it”. so what’s the pyramid (or whatever) sitting on?

@Baslim=here the path of least resistance is fatal, not futile.

And a whole bunch of you people need to see your eye doctors.

I think a lot of our readers have fuzzy monitors. The credits around the strip are legible (but not too clear) on mine. Either that or we have some good imaginations.

grazer…it did, indeed! Ha ha haaaaaa……..

RichardS, the original phrase was “heels over head”. It got twisted over the years. You’re right, the way it is said now really doesn’t make any sense. My dad lived through the twenties, and insisted that the saying “Twenty three skidoo” was originally “Twenty two skidoo, twenty three skidee” and people got it wrong over the years. I’m sure we all know Cary Grant never said “Judy, Judy, Judy” and Bogart never said “Play it again Sam.” Same kinda thing…our collective memory sucks…

BTW, those really are some thin ankles. I can see how they might not be seen as legs…

In the lower right, Mr. Wiley’s email address is mostly given: Wiley??@earthlink.net. Pretty smart of him to make a couple of the letters illegible.

It’s not the fall that kills. It’s that sudden stop at the bottom.

Rorschach would be proud.

The “Non Sequitur” comments are always at least as entertaining as the strip.

@Mythreesons - “And a whole bunch of you people need to see your eye doctors…” - Perfect!!!

Perception and vision are often two different things.

Wiley, your fans are an unusually imaginative and perspicacious bunch. If you had shown more of the falling man’s body than just his legs and feet, a lot of the interpretations would have gone away. But then - what would we have left to fuss about?

Today’s cartoon is an illustration of the inherent problem with minimalist drawing. On the other hand, my dictionary defines non sequitur as “an inference or conclusion that does not follow from the premises”.

Varnes & RichardS, another such saying: “Have your cake and eat it.” Of course you can do it–you have to have a piece of cake before you can eat it. However, the original version, “To eat your cake and have it still”–now there’s the difficulty… .

I’m allergic to concrete, myself (…it ain’t the fall that gets ya, it’s the sudden STOP at the end!)…..

@Mythreesons (and others): How’s this for a perception test?

http://topcultured.com/you-will-never-look-at-a-duck-the-same-way/

I guess there is least resistance to going straight down. Why are there skid marks leading up to the ladder?

Saw the feet right away,

but it has been fun looking back at them to see them as aliens, egyptians, towers, etc.

good example of sudden de-acceleration trauma, or if a sidewalk is involved, concrete poisoning!! Baslim, Great Star Trek reference take off, and no one else got it!!!