And of course dogs are colorblind, which is an entirely separate matter…

Cidu Bill on Jan 11th 2010

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Filed in Bill Bickel, CIDU, Mother Goose, comic strips, comics, humor | 28 responses so far

28 Responses to “And of course dogs are colorblind, which is an entirely separate matter…”

  1. Tim Jan 11th 2010 at 12:11 pm 1

    It’s a stupid, postmodern and possibly racist joke thing - you wouldn’t understand.

  2. John DiFool Jan 11th 2010 at 12:32 pm 2

    Dogs aren’t actually seeing black & white-IIRC they can’t see in the green spectrum, but they should be able to distinguish between yellow and blue.

  3. Keera Jan 11th 2010 at 12:42 pm 3

    I get the blue dog reference - Democrats who vote with Republicans. Is that it? An excuse to use the phrase “blue dog”?

  4. paperboy Jan 11th 2010 at 01:12 pm 4

    As Tim#1 said, it seems to be a race joke, playing on the old phrase “It’s a Black thing; you wouldn’t understand…”, but if that’s the case, why not just have Grimm tell the cat “It’s a Dog thing…”? Perhaps it’s a joke about the un-natural coloring use in the comics.

  5. firedmyass Jan 11th 2010 at 01:14 pm 5

    Keera’s on the right track.

    “Yellow Dog Democrats” are the other side of that coin: Originally they were Southern conservatives who yet refused to ever vote Republican cuz they were pissed at Lincoln. Now the term is generally applied to a Democrat who votes a strict party-line.

  6. paperboy Jan 11th 2010 at 02:34 pm 6

    firedmyass#5, you’ve added some back-ground, but now it seems like a political cartoon. Is the cat supposed to be a Third Party?

  7. Mark Jan 11th 2010 at 03:11 pm 7

    Yeah, I think he’s definitely riffing on the two kinds of Democrats, but what on earth is he saying? Does he mean the cat wouldn’t understand the conflict they’re having? If so, it seems like playing off of “it’s a black thing” — a phrase meant to exclude some people and include others — isn’t the right way to the joke in his case. If I dare wade into racial analogies, it would be like a black person and a white person having a disagreement and saying to an Asian person “It’s a black-white thing, you wouldn’t understand.” Which actually is a little bit funny, or at least funnier than this.

  8. Dyfsunctional Jan 11th 2010 at 04:18 pm 8

    This strip brings to mind George Rodrigue’s “Blue Dog” paintings of his hauntingly quizzical (and dead) dog.

    I find the white bubbles the three of them reside in distracting. I don’t know if the original artist or a later colorer dropped the ball on that one.

  9. TasmanSea Jan 11th 2010 at 04:44 pm 9

    Agree that blue dog/yellow dog must refer to democratic party factions… the question then becomes what point is being made about those factions?

    My best guess is that its a reference to the fact that since the democrats have razor thin majorities in both houses (but particularly the senate) fights among themselves to hold those majorities together- particularly to pass health care legislation- have become much more important than democrat-republican / cat-dog disputes.

    I guess the implication would then be that those internal democratic party disputes aren’t understandable from the outside- which seems like it is sometimes but not always true.

  10. Mark H Jan 11th 2010 at 05:19 pm 10

    A Dem lead of 58/40/2 in the Senate and 256/178/1 in the House is not “razor thin”. It’s huge. That said, I like Mark’s take best so far.

  11. Another Josh Jan 11th 2010 at 05:38 pm 11

    I work with a lot of politically connected people, and one of them states that “He’d vote for a yellow dog if he were running as a Democrat.” which is potentially where the “yellow dog” term came from.

  12. paperboy Jan 11th 2010 at 07:50 pm 12

    Dyfsunctional#8-”I find the white bubbles the three of them reside in distracting. I don’t know if the original artist or a later colorer dropped the ball on that one.”
    I suspect this is due to the fact that most comics aren’t drawn each day, but are compiled from previous drawings, so it’s quicker to use a “white bubble” than to draw the back-ground edges into the foreground character.

  13. paperboy Jan 11th 2010 at 07:53 pm 13

    Or it can be used to make the characters stand out.

  14. Andrea Jan 11th 2010 at 11:15 pm 14

    It especially helps them stand out when the comic is done in black & white, as I suspect this originally was.

  15. Patrick Jan 12th 2010 at 12:40 am 15

    Paperboy, that’s a classic case of “I’m commenting on a blogpost so I can say whatever I want and act like it’s a fact.”

    While comics aren’t “drawn each day” in the sense that tomorrow’s Doonesbury wasn’t whipped up on Trudeau’s drawing table this morning, they ARE, for the most part, drawn as individual panels or strips. Some cartoonists (mostly in the soap opera genre) will reuse panels as a time saving device. And others may do it with an image here and there. But by no means are “most” strips “compiled from previous drawings.”

    As you (correctly) point out in your second post, the artist here used those gaps to keep his characters from blending into the lines of the background. It just looks like white bubbles when the colorist have their way with it.

  16. Jeff S. Jan 12th 2010 at 02:04 am 16

    I yellow dog dare you! I BLUE dog dare you!!!

  17. Dyfsunctional Jan 12th 2010 at 06:14 am 17

    There are plenty of “copy and paste” strips out there (online and in print) and I think it ruins a lot of potentially good comics, unless it’s done for intentional comedic effect (as in Basic Instructions). If you can’t draw the same character twice, you’re not good at this. “So bad it’s good” is just lampshading.

    That said, MG&G is, as far as I can tell, a “real” strip, drawn by hand. I’m surprised that the colorist was competent enough to put drop shadows under the siding boards but not do anything about the white blobs (Grimm’s even has an appendage!).

  18. Morris Keesan Jan 12th 2010 at 08:45 am 18

    #10 Mark H: While 58/40/2 in the Senate may not be a “razor-thin majority” in the strict arithmetic sense, it’s definitely a razor-thin “supermajority” (I think that’s what it’s called). With Senate rules allowing filibusters to effectively stop the Senate from accomplishing anything, they need those 60 votes (58 + 2) to be able to get things actually voted on.

  19. Kevin A Jan 12th 2010 at 11:00 am 19

    This was a Sunday strip.

  20. Judge Mental Jan 12th 2010 at 11:24 am 20

    While “yellow dog and blue dog” may indeed have been used as a wink to particular groups of Democrats, I don’t they the colors are germane to the joke. While Mother Goose and Grim isn’t above controversey (Juan Valdez incident) or using political figures (Fidel Castro), I don’t recall political commentary being a staple of the strip.

    As paperboy (4) and Mark (7) suggested, this is just a take off on the “its a black thing, you wouldn’t understand”. As far as why it isn’t “just a dog thing”, I think that is the joke. Its not enough to be a “specist”, the characters feel compelled to break down into specific groups. It is along the lines of the old Emo Philips joke:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religion

  21. Elyrest Jan 12th 2010 at 11:55 am 21

    Judge Mental (20) - Thanks for including the link to the Emo Philips joke. I actually heard him tell that joke many years ago. It’s still funny. Life so often is all about inclusion and exclusion.

  22. Paperboy Jan 12th 2010 at 01:55 pm 22

    Patrick#15- Note I said “I suspect…”.

  23. Patrick Jan 12th 2010 at 02:45 pm 23

    Not to get too picky but, as written, you didn’t “suspect that most comics aren’t drawn each day.” Rather, you suspected the bubble-like things were “due to the FACT that MOST comics are compiled … .” There’s a big difference.

    But, I’ll accept that you meant to say the former.

    And Dysfunctional, I may have erred by assuming we were talking about print strips (such as Mother G and G). Cutting and pasting is probably more common in online strips.

  24. aoeu Jan 12th 2010 at 04:58 pm 24

    Both dogs and cats have dichromate vision which allows them to easily differentiate between blue and yellow. They exhibit blue-green colourblindness like that found in humans.

    And no, I don’t get it.

  25. Paperboy Jan 12th 2010 at 08:57 pm 25

    Patrick#15- I mean this seriously and not snottily: where did you get your information? ( and do you REALLY think Trudeau is drawing the strip these days? Look at the early strips; that guy has no drawing talent)

  26. Morris Keesan Jan 13th 2010 at 12:05 am 26

    Paperboy, Trudeau’s early strips only show that he didn’t have much drawing talent when he started. Neither did Scott Adams. They both got better gradually, as you can see if you look at the first few years of Doonesbury and Dilbert, and watch the progression to better art.

  27. Elyrest Jan 13th 2010 at 12:57 am 27

    Continuing on the art in comics - I have been reading “The Comics Before 1945″ by Brian Walker (there’s another book sfter 1945) and there are numerous examples in ther of the changes in style in a comic drawn by the same artist. Dick Tracy is one example. When Chester Gould started drawing him he had a long narrow face with fewer sharp edges. As time went on his face got shorter and wider an his chin got very pointy. Other examples are Little Orphan Annie and Blondie. Most comics go through growing pains as the artists mature. Trudeau is famous for growing in his trade.

  28. paperboy Jan 13th 2010 at 12:45 pm 28

    Morris Keesan#26- Yes, it’s possible he got better, but I’ll bet you euros to yo-yos he has an assistant to finish his break-downs.

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