But no one ever mentioned the walrus

Fortunato · Post by **Fortunato** » Tue Sep 16, 2003 9:45 pm

But I just did. The walrus. There. I mentioned him again. Perhaps this one should be filled with references to the Lewis Carrol classic "the walrus and the carpenter". Yeah. That'd be neat.

gareis · Post by **gareis** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 11:30 am

You're trying to be funny, but you're not succeeding imhoe. "No one ever mentioned the (definite specific) walrus." It's a particular walrus he had in mind. Do you know to which walrus he referred? No. It could be any walrus. He has a specific one in mind, and no one ever mentioned that one to him.

Just take the title at face value. It's funnier that way.

kaos_de_moria · Post by **kaos_de_moria** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 11:38 am

i wonder where the word walrus comes from, since the german version sounds very similar, but has a meaning: it's walross and "ein wal" is "a whale" and "ein ross" is a rather seldom used term for "horse". so actually the animal should be called whalehorse.

i actually wonder why the person who named the walross saw a whale and a horse in that animal. if i could mix a horse with a whae it'd probably look quiet different.

kaos

//edited to correct typing mistake

Post by **Greg Stephens** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 11:48 am

You get a cookie! According to this site, you've pretty much sussed it out (though they claim Dutch ancestory for the word rather than German, but it's not far off):

walrus - 1655, from Du. walrus, which was probably a folk-etymology alteration (by influence of Du. walvis "whale" and ros "horse") of a Scand. word, such as O.N. rosmhvalr "walrus," hrosshvalr "a kind of whale," or rostungr "walrus." O.E. had horschw?l, and later morse, from Lapp morsa or Finnish mursu.

kaos_de_moria · Post by **kaos_de_moria** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 12:35 pm

in context to my other post about discourse (i think it's in the parallelogram thread at the end) i wonder now if scotts walrus will look like a real walrus or if he changes it to look like a mix of a whale and a horse

we'll know soon enough...

kaos

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 3:04 pm

Why must the word come from a non-English source? English is closely related to both German and Dutch (though spelling conventions prevent us from parsing either with any ease).

OE "hwael" + "hors" would yield walors, perhaps. Factor in the Scandinavian influence, and you get "hwael hros" (or /hwal hrOs/ in X-SAMPA), which becomes our very own walrus.

"If someone made an Internet site about it, it has to be true."

--------------------------------------

So, now we have a walrus with a stupefied look on its face (let's face it, what walrus doesn't) in a business suit (not a very nice one) carrying a briefcase or a suitcase. What's it doing? Door-to-door sales? Applying for a job? Getting its shoes shined?

~gareis

wansley · Post by **wansley** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 3:13 pm

Fortunato wrote:But I just did. The walrus. There. I mentioned him again. Perhaps this one should be filled with references to the Lewis Carrol classic "the walrus and the carpenter". Yeah. That'd be neat.

Ummm, It's "Nobody Ever Noticed the Walrus," actually.

Since I bow to no one in my appreciation of Lewis Carroll, I would be very happy to see references to this poem from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There in the next MI. (I'm glad no one doesn't come around very often while I'm appreciating Lewis Carroll, because I always feel foolish bowing to him.)

I like Scott's title illustration for "Walrus" very much. It could be an illustration from a classic children's book from the '50s.

Rip Tanion · Post by **Rip Tanion** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 3:46 pm

In Ripspeak (the language for the new millenium), the word for walrus is brimley, as in...

My favorite cartoon brimley was Chumley.

"Da, gee, Tennethee, didn't Prof. Woopee thay dat a hydigerant bomb is dangerouthz?"

The part of Chumley was voiced by Paul McCartney.

It's the right thing to do, so do it and do it often! There no reason not to!

Kris LAchowski · Post by **Kris LAchowski** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 4:33 pm

Well so far Mr. McCloud's on the right track. At the least he's already established that there is a walrus. That's leaps and bounds ahead of that Evil that men forget one. Any one else anticipating a Chicken Boo like story?

Post by **Greg Stephens** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 5:07 pm

wansley wrote:I like Scott's title illustration for "Walrus" very much. It could be an illustration from a classic children's book from the '50s.

I also thought that it was like a picture book drawing.

Your posting the image here makes me notice that men's vests traditionally have the buttons on the other side from how Scott drew them here. Maybe walrus' vests are just constructed differently?

Random Dent · Post by **Random Dent** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 5:30 pm

Rip Tanion wrote: My favorite cartoon brimley was Chumley.

"Da, gee, Tennethee, didn't Prof. Woopee thay dat a hydigerant bomb is dangerouthz?"

The part of Chumley was voiced by Paul McCartney.

Haha! Paul IS the Walrus- John wasn't lying in "Glass Onion."

I must say, I feel sorry for the poor thing already.

gareis · Post by **gareis** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 8:49 pm

I imagine it will happen in a manner reminiscent of a stop-motion film I saw. Things happen, and the walrus is always there. No one notices him. No one stops to help him. He's lonely. He's the world's enemy. He's an SEP field with Marvin's love of the universe.

Sorry for the Douglas Adams references, but not enough to avoid them. If you don't understand, it's all your fault. I am the Walrus; you must do as I bid, accept what I give, and no more.

*pop*

*sob* No more rubber suit....

~gareis

DecafSilicon · Post by **DecafSilicon** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 9:04 pm

No, no, I am the walrus.

Goo-goo-ga-choo.

Have we exhausted all walrus allusions?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 10:27 pm

Anonymous wrote:Well so far Mr. McCloud's on the right track. At the least he's already established that there is a walrus. That's leaps and bounds ahead of that Evil that men forget one. Any one else anticipating a Chicken Boo like story?

That was exactly what I was thinking. But then again, the title seems to imply that they never noticed the walrus at all, not that they never noticed the fact that he's a walrus.

wansley · Post by **wansley** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 12:56 pm

Rip Tanion wrote:In Ripspeak (the language for the new millenium), the word for walrus is brimley, as in...

My favorite cartoon brimley was Chumley.

"Da, gee, Tennethee, didn't Prof. Woopee thay dat a hydigerant bomb is dangerouthz?"

The part of Chumley was voiced by Paul McCartney.

While I'm sure this is intended as a joke (and a darn funny one, too) the voice of Chumley was actually provided by Bradley Bolke.

Random Dent · Post by **Random Dent** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 2:31 pm

Anonymous wrote:
Sorry for the Douglas Adams references, but not enough to avoid them. If you don't understand, it's all your fault.

~gareis

But if you do understand, you deserve a Pan- Galatic Gargle Blaster! ::points to user name as she downs one::

My moniter is...bad. Can anyone tell what the door says?

Zhat · Post by **Zhat** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 2:46 pm

What does the door say? After zooming in and fliping it (since we're on the inside looking out) I got this:

Looks like "Redmond, Flnwkk & Clinhak" to me.
...That cant be right.

Aeph · Post by **Aeph** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 2:57 pm

Redmond, Fenwick and Dunbar. It's clearer if you hold your screen further away from you. (I'm writing this on my laptop.)

I tried googling that, but nothing interesting came up.

Rip Tanion · Post by **Rip Tanion** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 4:03 pm

wansley wrote:
Rip Tanion wrote:In Ripspeak (the language for the new millenium), the word for walrus is brimley, as in...

My favorite cartoon brimley was Chumley.

"Da, gee, Tennethee, didn't Prof. Woopee thay dat a hydigerant bomb is dangerouthz?"

The part of Chumley was voiced by Paul McCartney.
While I'm sure this is intended as a joke (and a darn funny one, too)

Save the applause, I'll need it for later. Thank you, I'm here all week. Enjoy We The People. Is this thing on?

How can you NOT notice the Walrus in that get-up?

Goo-goo-ga-JOOB!

Wikkit · Post by **Wikkit** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 4:06 pm

Random Dent wrote:But if you do understand, you deserve a Pan- Galatic Gargle Blaster! ::points to user name as she downs one::

We don't have a shortage of Adamsian nicks.

Neat that it's a Sylvan Migdal title. I think he could do this sort of thing well, if it was more of a Weekend Improv, rather than every morning.

Does anyone else think it's odd that Scott uses transparent gifs for spacing? It used to be that you'd get flamed by the evil overlords of HTML for that sort of thing.

Post by **Greg Stephens** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 4:40 pm

Rip Tanion wrote:Goo-goo-ga-JOOB!

More Walrus lore tying the Beatles to Lewis Carroll found here.

Wikkit wrote: Does anyone else think it's odd that Scott uses transparent gifs for spacing? It used to be that you'd get flamed by the evil overlords of HTML for that sort of thing.

Being that this is one of my own interests, I've noticed that Scott uses a lot of older, out of fashion HTML techniques (no CSS?), but we all know he's a comics author, not a web-design guru. Those two value systems do not align easily, since more "pure" HMTL techniques require one to give up on any sort of control (tyranny, some would say) over the page layout. Yes, there are ways to do all this stuff with HTML and CSS, but they require much more testing and a deep knowledge of the code. Most comics authors don't want to give up the absolute control over the page design that they had in the print world, so they are content to use whatever approach works to force their vision into the browser window rather than seek an ideal, more cleanly-coded and forward compatible solution. (I'm not presuming to speak for Scott on this matter. He knows better than I why he does what he does.)

Related to the rift between webcomic author and website designer, I have noticed some truly horrendous site designs perpetrated by some very talented comics authors. What can explain this? Why do people who are so attuned visually that they can draw beautiful comics fail so spectacularly when designing a web page? I think the answer is an elaboration of what I said above- They do try for beauty but hit a wall with the code where they can't make their vision come out right. The HTML learning curve is such that you can put together a webpage in a vew minutes and have it work, but after a certain point, to understand HTML's elegance, thrift and beauty (tied with CSS), you really have to put in the hours to learn some stuff. If you're working for a page design that looks exatly like you want it to, but you haven't worked with the code enough to know how to do it the "purest" way, you end up with a lot of solutions like transparent spacer .gif files and massive table-controlled layouts, which those in the know tend to look down upon.

Most people just go with what works and most of their audience will never notice.

I could go on about this, but won't- It's really another topic entirely and we can start another thread if anybody wants to discuss it further.

Post by **Greg Stephens** » Fri Sep 19, 2003 12:25 pm

Looks like Wally knows what day it is.

Edit: OK, so Stuart knows what day it is.

Tool · Post by **Tool** » Fri Sep 19, 2003 1:38 pm

Anonymous wrote:Redmond, Fenwick and Dunbar. It's clearer if you hold your screen further away from you. (I'm writing this on my laptop.)

I tried googling that, but nothing interesting came up.

Maybe it's place names... there's Redmond, Washington, of course, and the Grand Duchy of Fenwick... there's a Dunbar in Scotland but I don't know that its famous.

As surnames, the three seem to be linked in St. Mary's County, Maryland, but I can't imagine there's a reference there.

Of course they could just be random... or is that too simple?

MSUSpar10 · Post by **MSUSpar10** » Fri Sep 19, 2003 2:51 pm

Wally's talkin' like a pirate. So must we all, arrrrgh. Reminds me of me of my favorite pirate joke...

"A pirate walks into bar. The bartender says, 'Hey buddy, do you know you have a stearing wheel hanging from your zipper." The pirate replies, "Arrrrr, I know...and it's drivin' me nuts."

(Also works if it's a leprachaun).

Put maybe Wally is just celebrating Talk like a Pirate Day.

http://www.talklikeapirate.com/

Zwol.org

But no one ever mentioned the walrus

But no one ever mentioned the walrus

in context to discourse

But no one ever mentioned noticing the walrus

Well so far Mr. McCloud's on the right track

Re: But no one ever mentioned noticing the walrus

I am the Walrus

Re: Well so far Mr. McCloud's on the right track

The voice of the Walrus

Re: I am the Walrus

Re: The voice of the Walrus

Re: I am the Walrus

Re: The voice of the Walrus

Arrrr!!

Redmond, Fenwick, and Dunbar

I love pirates