Comments on: Once Again, Ophthalmology Saves the Day

By: Red October

Red October — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 07:33:35 +0000

Heh… I see like that normally because I have a very strong prescription -so strong that anywhere but the center of my eyeglasses the colors seperate -not as bad as in a 3-D movie but enough to look like a television projector that is out of alignment -except that it’s real, which is kind of freaky.

By: Geoph

Geoph — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 19:23:04 +0000

Actually, rather than the ramifications of everybody knowing how to spell Mxyzptlk’s name, the thing that jumped out at me is that they spelled it incorrectly, backwards: they swapped the “P” and the “T” if Mxy’s reading it right, and therefore he should just be faking, and be able to hang about a bit longer.

By: Seth Finkelstein

Seth Finkelstein — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 06:30:30 +0000

The Golden Age Mxy who dressed in a business suit seems like the type who would have business cards with his name on them in English, as part of the ensemble.

Clark Kent probably did the transliteration of New Gods to English. I assume New Gods is one of those ideographic languages, and the transliterations are attempting to capture the flavor of ideogram meanings in the names. In the DC universe, the reporter’s stylebook likely covers this stuff as part of the Important Names section, and getting it wrong from the standard format would be considered very embarrassing. I mean, “Darkseid” and “Desaad” are pretty easy compared to “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad” or “Viktor Yushchenko” (I can just see Kent thinking he should make it short and simple for the sake of all his fellow reporters who have to type these names all the time).

By: Jeff R.

Jeff R. — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:33:12 +0000

So back in the day, even spelling his name backwards worked to get rid of him? I thought it was just pronouncing it.

Koosbing: The problem is even worse when considering how the word, and the newspapers in particular, ever learned how “Darkseid” is spelled. Did the dread lord of Apocalips send a nasty letter to the editors? (”No, you puny humans, my name is not “Dark Side”. It’s “Darkseid”. I before e except after c and in the names of your true dark lord and master. Also, my assistant’s name is spelled “Desaad”, with two ‘a’s. He wanted to use an umlaut, but even I thought that would be excessive.”

By: Koosbing

Koosbing — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:14:17 +0000

How in the world did he figure out how Mxyzptlk was spelled? I know it’s the kind of logical question you shouldn’t ask about comic plots, but did Mr Mxyzptlk ever oblige by giving his signature or something (in english letters) so they would know how to spell it backwards?

By: Kerlyssa

Kerlyssa — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:59:21 +0000

Ahh. I know who he is. Should have read the chart more closely. ;)

By: Coyote's Own

Coyote's Own — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:46:23 +0000

That’s because he’s/Mr. Mxyzptlk a five dimensional Imp, and a reoccurring nuisance (would call him an enemy) of Superman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Mxyzptlk

By: Kerlyssa

Kerlyssa — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:38:52 +0000

Why is everyone except the patient drawn normally? He looks like a pink balloon animal with hair.

By: Sean Duggan

Sean Duggan — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:02:05 +0000

Hrm… would wearing regular glasses to 3-D movies back then really have conjured up those extra shapes? Maybe 5th-dimensional imps see differently, but I would think you’d just have blurring and color separation. Which, in itself, would indeed seem to be quite the visual error if everyone else around you professes to be seeing fine.