2996: CIDABM

|< < Prev Comic #2996 (October 9, 2024) Next > >|

CIDABM

Title text: There's a heated debate over whether the big island of Tierra del Fuego should qualify for membership.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by Gotland - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

The comic parodies intergovernmental cooperations, such as the G7 "group of seven" (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) or the BRICS group (originally Brazil, Russia, India and China, with South Africa soon after rounding off the initialism before further nations attained membership). Such treaties, and other more casual associations between nations, can be based upon some close association in geographical, political, cultural and/or economic terms (or even, in some cases, by little more than sharing a common opposition to a different bloc of nations).

The "CIDABM" group, named for the very specific membership criteria, has been formed on a rather more abstract basis than most geographically-focused groupings (e.g. NATO or the Pacific Islands Forum) and (currently) consists of four otherwise disparate islands:

• Sicily is an autonomous region of Italy, which is on the southern edge of the Eurasian mainland.
• Sri Lanka is a nation in its own right, south of India, which is also on the southern edge of the Eurasian mainland.
• Hainan is a province of China, which is also on the southern edge of the Eurasian mainland.
• Tasmania is a state of the nation of Australia, south of the main continental mainland.

These four islands 'dangle below' their mainlands only because of the convention of having north at the top of maps. If the mapmaking convention had instead been to have south at the top, the islands might have been described as floating above their continents. Conversely, Madagascar, Newfoundland or Adelaide Island might have been applicable members of similar 'dangling' alliances where the basic premise might come from one or other different map orientations.

The big island of Tierra del Fuego (Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego), mentioned in the title text, is off the southern tip of the Chilean mainland (as well as a small bit of Argentina). But, unlike the others in the comic, it doesn't prominently 'dangle' south of a mainland: It has narrow channels separating its northern and northwestern sides from the mainland, and other parts of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago surround its southwestern side and make it appear well-connected to the mainland. In addition, it isn't a single political entity: the island is split between Chile to the west and Argentina to the east. Both of these factors might have contributed to the heated debate referred to in the title text.

While the banner on stage depicts each of the islands with approximately the same size, Tasmania (68'400 km²) and Sri Lanka (65'600 km²) are much larger than Hainan (35'200 km²) and Sicily (25'800 km²). Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego is in the middle sizewise (48'000 km²). Other islands that didn't make the cut for the comic are Corsica (8'700 km², south of France's mainland), Cyprus (9'300 km², south of Turkey) or Kyushu (36'800 km²) and Shikoku (18'800 km²) that are very close and south of the Japanese mainland of Honshu - like Tierra del Fuego, the status of all these islands as "awkward dangling" could be disputed, when regarding the four 'founding members' of the new coalition. Gotland (3'200 km²) and Long Island (3'600 km²) are even smaller, and like Taiwan (36'200 km²) they are arguably dangling more to the east than the south of their respective mainlands. The Isle of Wight (merely 380 km²) probably qualifies for "awkward", but not for "big"; the same likely goes for Stewart Island/Rakiura (1,746 km²), which dangles south of the South Island of New Zealand. Cuba (105'800 km²) which "dangles" south of Florida seems also not quite fitting the theme. Sumatra (482'300 km²), dangling south of the Malay peninsula, might actually be too large to qualify for the club.

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[A banner hangs at the top of the frame, labelled C.I.D.A.B.M., with several map segments on it. Four portions of land are shown in grey with a smaller island south of each in black.]

[Hairbun, Cueball, Megan, and Hairy stand on a podium. The first two are shaking hands and Hairy is waving.]

[Caption below the panel:]

Geopolitical news: Sicily, Sri Lanka, Hainan, and Tasmania have joined together to form the Coalition of Islands that Dangle Awkwardly From the Bottom of a Mainland.

 add a comment! ⋅  add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅  refresh comments!

Discussion

Still makes more sense than BRICS. 172.71.144.34 19:35, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I for one think Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego is a classic example of an island that does NOT dangle awkwardly at the bottom of a mainland. It's almost a case study in graceful, near-seamless islandic placement relative to the mainland, such that if you informed someone that it's technically an island they may do a double-take and have to squint at a map before they believe you. As further evidence for this perspective, I commend to the reader 2256: Bad Map Projection: South America where IGdTdF is only represented as truly distinct from the mainland in 1 out of the 36 South Americas represented - and this is probably more for comedy value than anything else, since in this map, IGdTdF ITSELF has been replaced by another entire (and extremely small) South America! -MeZimm 172.68.3.4 22:42, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Very tempted to make an official Explanation addition that if we named the group for the members (like BRICS has been, and which originally had me trying to identify the islads by shape and what initials they might have, before my eyes finally drifted down to their actual names), it would almost make a very unfortunate initialism indeed. And the one it does make is basically the same in phonetic terms... I won't actually do so. But I am left wondering if this was actually intended as an additional unspoken bit of Randall's humour, in fact. 172.69.195.94 23:00, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I shall create my own island below the UK to join this Coalition. Caliban (talk) 06:55, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

dunon why, but my first thought on the alt-text was that it was a joke about south america being an island below north america. ~~storm. 172.69.60.185 (talk) 11:27, 10 October 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Anyone else think Sri Lanka is a really weird shape for an island? It just doesn't make sense to me, geologically speaking Tommyds (talk) 13:53, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I feel like we should have a [blank] news category. That seems to come up a lot. -- Ok123 (talk) 17:55, 10 October 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

agreed. I’ll bring it up in the community portal. 42.book.addict (talk) 20:51, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

The group flatly rejected the application for membership of North America South of Two Ocean Creek. RegularSizedGuy (talk) 02:34, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I wonder if it's worth mentioning the "theory of continental drip", postulated in one of Iain Banks's novels. 172.70.86.172 06:28, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Tasmania Is an island dangling from a larger island. SomeRandomNerd (talk) 01:59, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

The two small islands marked as dots between Tasmania and the mainland also happen to be part of the Tasmanian state.--Ozhamada (talk) 02:18, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm an aussie and that's learning for me! However they aren't marked on the map. 172.68.210.14 08:39, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

It might depend upon what resultion image you're looking at. The two (actually three, two to the right) dots north of Tasmania's corners (King and Flinders/Cape Barren) are marked the grey of the mainland rather than the black of all other points Tasman.

The south-eastern-edge islands may get a decent showing (in full black), given the resolution, though the anti-aliasing hints at features (e.g. Bruny/Maria) that may or may not be represented there for reasons of typical Randallian illustration.

For obvious reasons of scale/coverage, though, Macquarie Island doesn't festure at all! 172.70.85.128 15:28, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

No love for Cuba, Madagascar, or Sumatra? 172.69.23.49 19:43, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Cuba and Sumatra are in more complex relationships than being an island "dangling below". (Other islands/continents all around them, generally moreso than the cited examples which tend to be the predominant islands at their scale and in their context.) Madagascar hangs off the 'side' of Africa (maybe below Eurasia, if Africa wasn't counted). Obviously there's leeway of interpretation, but it's part of why Tierra Del Fuego is mentioned as an iffy candidate.

There are probably other edge-candidates (NZ South Island, c.f. North Island, etc? Though Stewart Island c.f. South Island might be more apt)... 172.70.85.62 19:53, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Cuba is much longer than Florida, and I would not say it looks like it dangles below that part of the US. Also the distance is much greater compared to the size than the ones between the other islands. Maybe Tasmania is as far away but it is a very big landmass above so when drawn on the banner it looks similar. Cuba would not look anything like the others. Sumatra is larger than the part of the mainland it is near and it is not even under it. And as said Madagascar is not at all under Africa. So of course they would not be included. The reason Tierra del Fuego is not included is that when drawn like the others it would be difficult to see where it did not hang onto the mainland. Seems to me that the other not included islands given as examples in the current version of the explanation also fails to come close to the idea of the comic. --Kynde (talk) 05:50, 20 October 2024 (UTC)