The Big Thank You Search of 2020
Shaenon: Today the National Cartoonists Society is asking cartoonists to put symbols representing essential workers into their comic strips, as a thank-you to the people who have been working through the actual apocalypse to keep us alive. The symbols are:
1. Mask (for medical workers and caregivers)
2. Steering wheel (for people who move our deliveries, supplies, mail etc.)
3. Shopping cart (for grocery workers)
4. Apple (for teachers)
5. Fork (for restaurants and essential businesses that have stayed open)
6. Microscope (for medical researchers)
As a former and current Highlights subscriber (Robin is into it), I couldn’t resist drawing a Hidden Pictures puzzle. These things are hard to do! See if you can find all six objects.
And please thank Jeff, who as an essential government worker in Wisconsin has been plugging away through all of this.
Channing: Aw, thanks, Shaenon. I’m genuinely touched.
I was big into Highlights as a kid, but I have retained almost nothing of it other than those big full-page comics where they tried to name-drop a huge number of real-world readers simultaneously in the most awkward possible way.
Also, “Goofus and Gallant.” Being classed as part of the “good” half within a ridiculously pat system of moral didacticism, was, and remains, a major concern of mine.
I’m giving up on the microscope; but I’m calling the coffeepot the symbol of the police…
Yes, the microscope was the hardest one to find, but it is there.
Great job on hiding the microscope! It is very silly. Great job, but very silly. 🙂
I found the microscope first off, rapidly followed by mask, apple, and steering wheel. The cart took longer and the fork was the last. My trick is to unfocus slightly and just look for what lines seem slightly odd or out of place.
Ah, I see I’m not the only one who uses that method for finding hidden images.
I actually noticed one of the lines that makes up the microscope early on as an anomaly of some sort, but I couldn’t get it to resolve into a picture of anything until I came back to it after finding everything else. I think for me it was apple -> fork -> mask -> shopping cart -> microscope.
The coffeepot reminds me of someone, the way it’s holding its handle.
Popeye?
I’ve got one of those, though– the handle’s perfectly drawn, it does hook just like that.
I got a Mokka pot so I can make espresso drinks during lockdown and I’m extremely fond of it.
I think I remember. Reminds me of the character of Typhoid Mary in one of the “Big Book of…” collections. The pot holds itself with the same sort of body English.
found everything except the fork
finally found the fork
Fork was last, same for me.
Counting this one, nine of the comics I read have participated in this “Thank You” event today. But if it weren’t for Shaenon’s explanation, I wouldn’t have known the reason behind it.
I miscounted (actually, I just didn’t notice a few the first time around).
1. Skin Horse
2. Breaking Cat News
3. Over the Hedge
4. Non Sequitur
5. The Born Loser
6. Foxtrot
7. Strange Brew
8. Off the Mark
9. In the Bleachers
10. Pooch Cafe
11. Rose Is Rose
12. Speed Bump
13. Overboard (only has two of the six items)
And of the other 16 comics in my regular Sunday collection, 9 of them are reruns from years (or decades) past. So that’s a pretty decent turnout, even just from my limited list. I have no doubt there are many, many more.
I found a few more comics.
14. Adam@Home
15. Big Nate
16. Thatababy
17. Phoebe and Her Unicorn
Lil’ Lio.
https://www.gocomics.com/lio/2020/06/07
My guesses, hidden with ROT13.
1. Znfx- Ba gur zvkvat objy.
2. Fgrrevat jurry- Yrsg xabo ba gur bira.
3. Fubccvat pneg- Hcfvqr qbja ba gur sna ubbq bire gur bira.
4. Nccyr- Ba Havgl’f qerff, obggbz yrsg.
5. Sbex- Ba gur furys ng obggbz evtug, ba gur qvivqre guvathzzl.
6. Zvpebfpbcr- Va gur qrfvta nobir naq yrsg bs Fjrrgurneg’f ung?
National Cartoonists Society eh? Yaknow, I can’t help but notice that there’s no officially established cartoon fandom, and no longer an American comic book fandom. Back when the anime craze was going on, I noticed there was no comic book fandom entry on Wikipedia (and there still isn’t one) even though historically comic books are a big part of nerd/geek culture especially back in the day, while anime/manga had it’s own portal and everything, which is ironic since they were clearly the mainstream. It’s almost like comic book and cartoon fandom is being censored.
“Officially established cartoon fandom” sounds like an oxymoron to me. I mean, “fandom” is, by its very nature, sort of “unofficial”, isn’t it?
I don’t really see how it’s “unofficial”
For a specific company’s IP, you can have an offficial fan club like the Merry Marvel Marching Society or its intermittent successors. But for most broader categories of media, there’s no authority that can deem a particular organization “official”. Sometimes one organization in a particular interest area has more prestige or respect from fans than most of the others, but it’s hard to say it’s “official” in the same way the MMMS was. Like the Organization for Transformative Works in fanfic fandom, or the World Science Fiction Society — there are plenty of active fanfic writers and readers who have never been involved with or even heard of the former, and the vast majority of science fiction readers, even those involved in various aspects of fandom, have never been a member of WSFS. I’m less familiar with organizations in cartoon/comics fandom, but I figure it’s the same there.
Is there a version of this with a transparent background? I want to try coloring it.
I didn’t make one, but you’re free to try coloring it.
You shouldn’t need it transparent to color it (in fact, if it were me, I wouldn’t want it transparent). But if you have GIMP, you can remove the white background yourself in one simple operation.
Technically, two simple operations: First you have to add the alpha channel to the image, and then you can use the “Color to Alpha” function to remove all the white from the image.
Microscope was hardest…But I found it eventually.
It’s like “The Mini Page”!
I’d sooner have expected Unity to just eat the six objects.
Why do you think they’re hidden? She can’t eat what she can’t see.
I see Luann has the hidden objects, too.
As does The Argyle Sweater and (thank you, Comics Curmudgeon) Baby Blues, Dustin and Six Chix (in the stupidest way possible).
Six Chix seems to be missing their mask.
I had a dream (or nightmare) last night, where every comic in the comics section was one of those Norman Rockwell pass-the-gossip-on comics. Must have been set off by some advance word of this.
According to the VOANews site, there are at least 70 participating strips. And, after Sunday, GoComics and Comics Kingdom will run all of them together along with a “Thank you” message.
https://www.voanews.com/usa/comic-strips-thank-front-line-covid-19-workers
Perhaps Shaenon could upload this comic to GoComics – even though it’s a Sunday strip – so it can be included in that collection.
I miss counting Ninas. (i’m old)