I was thinking some sort of expression where it was common to say “never makes a dud” made literal since it’s a bomb factory. All I could find along those lines is a reference to a shampoo brand (“Huron”).
Either that or some kind of commentary about how bombs suck and a “successful” bomb is a terrible thing so they hate him for always making a successful killing machine. But that doesn’t seem in line with the Far Side oeuvre.
In 90s and earlier American slang, a “dud” is a failure, which was often applied to movies, books, and yes daily comic strips.
An entertainer who never failed to make a good movie, TV show, comic strip, would be said to “never make a dud”.
This was in reference to ammunition that failed to explode, a big thing given American prominence in arms and ammunition manufacturing, that permeated through the culture.
In this drawing, the workers are literally making bombs, some of which could not explode and turn out to be duds.
See but now is it implying he’s actually a Mr. Perfect or that he’s someone who pretends insistently to be Mr. Perfect? Because if they are building nukes, how often are they actually testing for duds? Is this implying he never makes a dud and everyone where everyone else sometimes does, or that he pretends to never make a dud when realistically nobody will never know until the warheads start flying and it becomes a drop in the pool?
I choose to believe it’s the latter, that he “takes pride in making the best bombs, with no duds” whereas the disgruntled colleague understands that everyone is expected to never make a dud and that such a boastful claim is baseless since nobody will be able to prove it until Armageddon.
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