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No. 91: That looks familiar. Especially the cat.

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That looks familiar. Especially the cat.

First | Previous | 2016-10-19 | Next | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/pomh/?comic=91

Strip by: Ian Boreham

{A picture of Kiki (from Studio Ghibli's Kiki's Delivery Service) flying on her broom with her cat. She is drawn in a slightly more spiky way than usual.}
title: Kiki's delivery Service (spiky letters)
caption: Studio Köhler Presents
{A picture of a similarly dressed girl with rounder, more flowing clothes and a rounder, less spiky broom, She is chubbier. Even her cat is more rounded.}
title: Bouba's Delivery Service (round, bubbly letters)

The author writes:

This one is for the linguists and psychology nerds. If it is completely lost on you, it may be a sign that you haven't heard of the Bouba/kiki effect or Kiki's Delivery Service. Köhler himself did not use these exact names, but I figured I'd rather give him the credit since he originated the idea.

This is not to be confused with the Bourbaki effect, which is what happens when a group of well-rounded, yet very sharp, mathematicians set out to put mathematics on firm foundations.

Kiki's hair and broom were already spiky in the original drawing, so I only exaggerated those slightly. I interpret this as a kind of phonetic determinism working in the mind of the character designer. Bouba is not very recognisable, due to the more extreme changes I had to make.

Drawn in Krita and Inkscape.