Drunken Letters To Popular Cartoonists
#1 In A Series
To: Scott Adams
Re: "Dilbert" Floating Hand?
Date: 5/27/99
Mr. Adams,
While viewing today's "Dilbert" comic strip online--chuckling appreciatively, as I do every morning, at the sharply observed workplace antics of D. and his cronies--I noted an odd visual detail: in the third and climactic panel, the hand of one of the characters appeared to be floating several inches (well, what would be several inches within the fictive "Dilbert" world; in my world, it was several pixels) above his forearm! I immediately took a screen shot (attached).
Several plausible explanations suggest themselves:
- You drew it this way on purpose, possibly to make some sort of point about the disconnection we all feel in today's increasingly dehumanized office environment; I was reminded of Yeats's line, "I come between him and the deed of his hand." If this is the case, then bravo!
- There simply was not enough ink for the wrist. Although, frankly, I would think you could afford all the ink you need, what with the revenues from the plush dolls and the UPN show; in any event, this could easily have been corrected in the online version, since (in my layman's understanding of these matters), a black pixel requires no more electronic "ink" to represent than does a white pixel.
- It was an error in the scanning process by which the printed strip is converted to its digital counterpart. This would be ironic, given how ruthlessly (and humorously!) "Dilbert" lampoons quality-control issues.
So, which of these explains the floating hand? Please advise. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Best Regards,
--Kevin Shay
To: Scott Adams
Re: Oops!
Date: 5/27/99
Mr. Adams,
Please disregard my earlier message with the subject line "'Dilbert' Floating Hand?" Further investigation has revealed that the disembodied hand in question did not, in fact, belong to one of the characters, but was one of the cursors used by my Web browser. It seems that Netscape Navigator's little "pointing finger" cursor (indicating that the mouse is positioned over a hyperlink) is roughly the same size as, and rendered in a similar style to, a typical "Dilbert" character's hand. The confusion arose when my cursor happened to be in just the right place over the third panel of the strip in question.
My apologies for any inconvenience my erroneous inquiry might have caused. Keep the laughs coming!
Best Regards,
--Kevin Shay
(attachment converted: floatinghand.gif)