http://www.explosm.net/comics/2047/
I’ve stared at it for about five minutes now, and I have absolutely no idea what is supposed to be happening.
Thanks,
SP
Longtime lurker here, using my hoarded first post to make a guess:
The one on the right is luring the fat one with a cupcake on a fish hook, but he is holding it too high for the fat one to reach it.
In any case, the fat one’s arms are too short to even reach his own mouth, so getting his hands on the cupcake would only frustrate him. (So how did he get fat?..)
So he explodes from frustration. In final cell, the one on the right is open mouthed in surprise. ??
Must delete final sentence in previous message. Upon looking at last cell again, the one on the right has no open mouth, just 2 eyes.
Yeah, I’m not sure what to make of it other than the dude on the right is dangling a cupcake to torment the one on the left, who can’t reach it.
Am I the only one who thinks these characters look like little penises?
If you look closely, you can see that the one on the left is jumping in the second to last panel (motion lines over the head, arms outstretched). In the final panel, he has landed on his butt, yet is still reaching hopefully for the cupcake.
It looks like he’s fallen through the floor in the last panel.
OK, so the guy on the left has fallen down/crashed through the floor/exploded because he can’t reach the cupcake. That much was pretty clear upon first read (except for the explosion one, though I think I like that explanation best).
So now my follow up question is:
Can anyone explain what is supposed to be funny about it?
Ha ha, fat dude can’t get cupcake!
Seriously, I love C&H, but sometimes there’s no more to it.
It looks to me as though the unfortunate fat one, in the course of the explosion (or merely jumping up and down, which is how it looks to me) has somehow lost his mouth, and the tormentor with the cake on the fishing line is looking worriedly at the floor/ground.
the fat guy broke the floor while attempting the jump. sort of like how it would make sense that Superman should break whatever he’s standing on everytime he goes from standing position to light speed in half a second.
On second thoughts, I think I’m utterly wrong about the disappearing mouth. Perhaps the real joke is for the C & H people to see how many people they can get to wonder about it. 
When the fat character attempts to jump, ( panel with the lines above his head) He is pressing DOWN to jump which instead drives him through the floor. Defeated he goes back to begging for the cupcake.
In the last panel the ‘fat’ character has broken though the floor but the floor is not wood or other material but a CLOUD. Both characters are in fact dead and have been dead the entire strip.
The character is one of the original 12 apostles. Jesus said “I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19) I would say that the character on the left is James the younger due to the vivid color of his clothing and I don’t have to remind that James the younger was well known as the douchiest of the apostles.
Moved MPSIMS --> Cafe Society.
I think this is the best analysis so far…
I’m usually pretty ‘getting out the joke’, no matter how subtle and/or bad it might be…but in this case I *really *can’t find anything more than “ha ha, the fat kid can’t reach the cupcake”, and I find that rather disappointing.
It’s probably one of those things where it was hilarious in the author’s head, but when put on paper it fell flat. It can’t all be pure gold.