» About     » Archive     » Submit     » Authors     » Search     » Random     » Specials     » Statistics     » Forum     » RSS Feed     Updates Daily

No. 1255: Garfield for Dogs

First | Previous | 2012-10-25 | Next | Latest

Garfield for Dogs

First | Previous | 2012-10-25 | Next | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=1255

Strip by: Manyhills

{Garfield is hanging by the neck on a tree branch}
Garfield: Mmmph.
{Odie is running to the rescue!}
{Odie running, with Garfield happily sitting on his back, holding Odie's ears}
Caption: A cat of idleness and greed/Caught in a tree did not dismay/He waited for his noble steed/And thanks to its tremendous speed/Rode easily away

The author writes:

There is a Far Side comic about what dogs hear when scolded; the answer is that everything comes across as "blah" save their own name. The writer François Caradec made a similar observation, and this forms the basis of his eight Poems for Dogs, to be found in 1990's Veuillez trouver ci-inclus ("please find enclosed"), entry number 49 in the Bibliothèque Oulipienne. Each of the poems conceals the name of the dog to which it is addressed, hidden from the human eye but entirely detectable to the canine ear when read aloud.

Dogs aren't the only creatures sensitive to the sound of their own names; the cocktail party effect refers to (among other things) the ability of humans to notice their name being mentioned even in a conversation they are not consciously listening to.

[[Original strip: Square Root of Minus Garfield strip #38, itself based on 1981-07-29.]]

Original strip: 1981-07-29.