Zippy does Japan (with a stop first in Taiwan)
by Dan Bloom
special contributor
In today's Taipei Times, on page 19, the Zippy comic strip features astoryline focused on a watermelon-shaped bus stop in Ishaya City,Japan. Before you go any further, turn to page 19 and look at theZippy strip for today. As you can see, Zippy the Pinhead is waitinginside a bus stop in Japan, when he suddenly hears the announcementthat the bus is coming and will arrive shortly, and then he muses tohimself: "I sure hope the bus is shaped like a sausage."
How this particular comic strip came to be has an interestingbackstory that involves this newspaper, some Taiwanese Internetsurfers in Taipei, a Japanese couple in Tokyo and, of course, thecartoonist Bill Griffith himself [URL: http://www.zippythepinhead.com ]
It all happened like this:
A few months ago, there was an article in the Taipei Times about"tai-ke" [www.taipeitimes.com], and in the article it was mentioned that sometaike like to eat watermelon slices dipped in soy sauce mixed withwasabi. When a reader saw that description of the taike way of noshingon watermelon in Taiwan, he did an image search on Google under thewords "watermelon", "wasabi" and "soy sauce", in hopes of find outmore about this popular dish and maybe even seeing a photograph ofpeople eating it.
However, while not finding any photos of the watermelon and wasabidish, this reader did find a photograph of a watermelon-shaped busstop, said by the website hosting the photo to be in Taiwan. [URL: http://www.agilitynut.com/p/taiwan.jpg ]
Feeling that the photo of a watermelon-shaped bus stop in Taiwan wascool, the reader decided to send the picture to the popularboingboing.net website in the U.S., where submissions from surfers areaccepted from time to time. Boingboing.net ran the bus stop photo fromTaiwan, and it was picked up by bloggers around the world, from Italyto Brazil. The photo was captioned: "Roadside Taiwan". [URL: http://www.boingboing.net/2005/07/28/roadside_taiwan.html ]
However, a savvy Taiwanese surfer in Taipei noticed that the bench inthe photo had some small words written in what appeared to beJapanese, not Chinese, so he surmised (and posted a note on his ownblog) that the bus stop in question was not in Taiwan, but in Japan.
At this point, the Taipei Times reader who first spotted the photo onGoogle, alarmed that the picture might have been mis-labeled and wasnot from "roadside Taiwan" but was rather from roadside Japan, sentthe photo to two friends in Japan and asked them if those words on thebench were indeed Japanese. They answer that came back from Satoru andMitsuko Ebihara in Yokohama was that, yes, the words were in Japanesekanji, they were not Chinese, and that in fact, the bus stop inquestion was actually in a city called Ishaya in Japan. [URL: http://www.konagai.org/furusato/IndexGenerator.asp?path=fruitbusstop ]
At this point, the cartoonist Bill Griffith in Connecticut, hadalready spotted this watermelon-shaped bus stop on boingboing.net anddecided he wanted to use the image in one of his upcoming Zippycartoons. So he wrote to boingboing.net, asking in which city inTaiwan the bus stop was located, not knowing that the earlyinformation was incorrect and that the bus stop was in Japan. When hefound out -- via a series of emails bouncing back and forth betweenChiayi, Taipei, Tokyo, Los Angeles and Connecticut -- where the busstop was actually located, Griffith decided to go with his plans to doa strip about it, and after completing it in his studio, dated itSeptember 19 and sent it to his syndicate in Kansas City, whichsupplies the daily Zippy cartoon to over 500 newpapers worldwide.
And that is what you are looking at today: a comic strip forged inConnecticut with an assist from people in Taiwan and Japan andpublished worldwide. Enjoy!
-------------------------------------------------------
Note: Freelance writer Dan Bloom interviewed cartoonist Bill Griffith for the TaipeiTimes last year. [URL: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2004/09/06/2003201905 ]
SIDEBAR
Excerpt from ''Taipei Times'' interview by Dan Bloom, September 6, 2004:
Griffith has placed Zippy and Griffy in a few strips that took place in Japan, with lots of funny English terms and phrases that the Japanese use on T-shirts, product names and store signs. When asked if Zippy might visit Taiwan again for future strips, Griffith said, "It's true, the Japanese interest in the English language is very Zippyesque. Strangely poetic."
"Zippy did go to Taiwan recently -- it was in the strip from Feb. 18, 2004, titled "Ollie Ollie Oxen Free," and the animal statues in the four panels were inspired by photographs from Taiwan that an expat there named Aaron Spinak sent to me.
"The photos were from a lawn sculpture store in Pingtung. I'd love to see photographs of more possible Taiwan locations for Zippy to visit. Sure, tell readers there to send me photos of anything Zippyesque in Taiwan. Zippy will be happy to discuss world affairs with a betel nut beauty, sure!"
by Dan Bloom
special contributor
In today's Taipei Times, on page 19, the Zippy comic strip features astoryline focused on a watermelon-shaped bus stop in Ishaya City,Japan. Before you go any further, turn to page 19 and look at theZippy strip for today. As you can see, Zippy the Pinhead is waitinginside a bus stop in Japan, when he suddenly hears the announcementthat the bus is coming and will arrive shortly, and then he muses tohimself: "I sure hope the bus is shaped like a sausage."
How this particular comic strip came to be has an interestingbackstory that involves this newspaper, some Taiwanese Internetsurfers in Taipei, a Japanese couple in Tokyo and, of course, thecartoonist Bill Griffith himself [URL: http://www.zippythepinhead.com ]
It all happened like this:
A few months ago, there was an article in the Taipei Times about"tai-ke" [www.taipeitimes.com], and in the article it was mentioned that sometaike like to eat watermelon slices dipped in soy sauce mixed withwasabi. When a reader saw that description of the taike way of noshingon watermelon in Taiwan, he did an image search on Google under thewords "watermelon", "wasabi" and "soy sauce", in hopes of find outmore about this popular dish and maybe even seeing a photograph ofpeople eating it.
However, while not finding any photos of the watermelon and wasabidish, this reader did find a photograph of a watermelon-shaped busstop, said by the website hosting the photo to be in Taiwan. [URL: http://www.agilitynut.com/p/taiwan.jpg ]
Feeling that the photo of a watermelon-shaped bus stop in Taiwan wascool, the reader decided to send the picture to the popularboingboing.net website in the U.S., where submissions from surfers areaccepted from time to time. Boingboing.net ran the bus stop photo fromTaiwan, and it was picked up by bloggers around the world, from Italyto Brazil. The photo was captioned: "Roadside Taiwan". [URL: http://www.boingboing.net/2005/07/28/roadside_taiwan.html ]
However, a savvy Taiwanese surfer in Taipei noticed that the bench inthe photo had some small words written in what appeared to beJapanese, not Chinese, so he surmised (and posted a note on his ownblog) that the bus stop in question was not in Taiwan, but in Japan.
At this point, the Taipei Times reader who first spotted the photo onGoogle, alarmed that the picture might have been mis-labeled and wasnot from "roadside Taiwan" but was rather from roadside Japan, sentthe photo to two friends in Japan and asked them if those words on thebench were indeed Japanese. They answer that came back from Satoru andMitsuko Ebihara in Yokohama was that, yes, the words were in Japanesekanji, they were not Chinese, and that in fact, the bus stop inquestion was actually in a city called Ishaya in Japan. [URL: http://www.konagai.org/furusato/IndexGenerator.asp?path=fruitbusstop ]
At this point, the cartoonist Bill Griffith in Connecticut, hadalready spotted this watermelon-shaped bus stop on boingboing.net anddecided he wanted to use the image in one of his upcoming Zippycartoons. So he wrote to boingboing.net, asking in which city inTaiwan the bus stop was located, not knowing that the earlyinformation was incorrect and that the bus stop was in Japan. When hefound out -- via a series of emails bouncing back and forth betweenChiayi, Taipei, Tokyo, Los Angeles and Connecticut -- where the busstop was actually located, Griffith decided to go with his plans to doa strip about it, and after completing it in his studio, dated itSeptember 19 and sent it to his syndicate in Kansas City, whichsupplies the daily Zippy cartoon to over 500 newpapers worldwide.
And that is what you are looking at today: a comic strip forged inConnecticut with an assist from people in Taiwan and Japan andpublished worldwide. Enjoy!
-------------------------------------------------------
Note: Freelance writer Dan Bloom interviewed cartoonist Bill Griffith for the TaipeiTimes last year. [URL: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2004/09/06/2003201905 ]
SIDEBAR
Excerpt from ''Taipei Times'' interview by Dan Bloom, September 6, 2004:
Griffith has placed Zippy and Griffy in a few strips that took place in Japan, with lots of funny English terms and phrases that the Japanese use on T-shirts, product names and store signs. When asked if Zippy might visit Taiwan again for future strips, Griffith said, "It's true, the Japanese interest in the English language is very Zippyesque. Strangely poetic."
"Zippy did go to Taiwan recently -- it was in the strip from Feb. 18, 2004, titled "Ollie Ollie Oxen Free," and the animal statues in the four panels were inspired by photographs from Taiwan that an expat there named Aaron Spinak sent to me.
"The photos were from a lawn sculpture store in Pingtung. I'd love to see photographs of more possible Taiwan locations for Zippy to visit. Sure, tell readers there to send me photos of anything Zippyesque in Taiwan. Zippy will be happy to discuss world affairs with a betel nut beauty, sure!"
posted by dan at 12:36 AM
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