| You may have expected a page full of links to all my favourites here,
but the truth is I can't see the point in just filling a page with links
you can find in so many other places. However, when a strip's creator goes
to the trouble of making dedicated link pictures like the one to the left,
I'm willing to make an exception. Besides I've got something to say that has at least something to do with that ugly dog and his (nominal) owner. |
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But first a little bit about a less famous creator (who also provided a special
link picture) and his creations. Eric Schwartz is best known among Amiga users for his animations, but of late he has started doing comic strips that can be read and (hopefully) enjoyed by anyone on the net. Have a look. [Go ahead, click on Amy's nose! Or between her... uh... never mind. Click on the background!) |  |
| Another exception is when something Really Special turns up. Unlike
the ones above, the picture to the left is not a link to anywhere,
just something I would like to say a few words about while we're talking
about comics anyway. Ridderne av Dor (Knights of Dor) is the current flagship of Norwegian comics, a fantasy epic with five albums published so far (spring 98) and two more planned. Hmmm... right now as I was typing this it struck me that seven is also the number of provinces in the land of Dor and the number of knights (one from each province). Coincidence? Yeah, riiiight! ;) Anyway, the picture is a miniature version of the cover of the fourth album, Lovens bokstav (The letter of the law), which won an award called Sproing (no, I'm not pulling your leg). I found it on the publisher's website, where there is no point in going unless you know Norwegian and want to know about their other publications - apart from the note about the award there does not seem to be anything else about RaD/KoD there, or anywhere else for that matter! |
Everyone knows animals can't talk, right? Alright, except for parrots and a couple of other birds (and for all I know some quadropeds as well) who have a limited ability to mimic human speech without having the faintest idea what they're talking about. So where does this leave the cartoon animals? With antropomorph animals who act more or less like humans, it's alright to let them talk. But many strips involve humans (or antropomorph animals) who keep animals (or less antropomorph animals) as pets: Pluto, Snoopy, Grimmy, Squeak and of course Garfield (and Odie). Pets don't talk to their owners (except for parrots etc., see above), so when a story requires a pet to express something more complicated than what mere body language can express, the artist solves the problem by giving the reader what I call a "mental window" on the character. That is, we see what the character thinks. (Some of them are really heavy thinkers...)
Okay, but what's the problem with that? Nothing. Not as long as the pet is alone in the scenario and just sits around thinking to himself. (Funny,all the pets I just mentioned are male. Oh well.) But then another pet enters the stage, and then things get really weird. Of course these pets need to communicate, but it has already been established that they can't talk. So what most artists do is this: They let the two characters sit and think at each other! This looks particularly crazy in an animated cartoon when the characters just sit and look at each other while apparently listening to a pair of narrative voices. (And of course if one of the characters is also narrating the story you may get a real problem with figuring out when he's "talking" and when he's narrating...)
But the craziest thing of all is why they (the strip creators) are doing this. The think the readers will have problems with accepting a talking animal, so they replace it with the even more incredible concept of a telepathic animal!!
Occasionally, Mother Goose and Grimm(y?) (link at the top of the page) is a kind of borderline case as far as this syndrome is concerned. One one paw, we frequently see MG talking to Grimmy and him thinking back at her (and she shows definite signs of understanding him), on the other paw Grimmy some times expresses his thoughts in ordinary speech bubbles....
[In newer strips found at the website Peters seems to have converted completely to speech bubbles.]
