Top Hats for Narwhals

Feb 18

The Periodic Inscrutable by Arthur Trope

There is an unwritten law of cartooning that says if you have a character that’s an octopus, it must have a top hat. You might remember Nickelodeon’s Oswald, or Orful from the old Laff-a-Lympics, or more recently the logo from Tapas. It’s not a hard rule, bc Squidward from Sponge Bob Squarepants only occasionally wore a top hat, but he might be the exception that proves the rule. Quick Google research bears out 2 things: (1) there is a surprising amount of literature online about the use of the octopus in editorial cartoons for propaganda purposes, dating back to the Russo-Turkish War in 1877; and (2) there is a long list of octopus sidekicks and secondary characters in Western popular culture, but there aren’t any truly great octopus cartoon heroes/protagonists, which feels like an opportunity to come up with a new franchise character. Anyway the reason for the prevalence of the top hat on these characters is no mystery. They need something to decorate their giant round heads. (This is why Spider-Man nemesis Doc Oc doesn’t count - he has a normal-sized head.)

Such was the subject of our lunch discussion, as we kept the octopus coming. And now Artie has a little more material for his summer course curriculum, which will include a full week on the ‘Law of Top Hats for Comic Octopi’, delving into octopus motifs on late 19th Century political propaganda maps, from Northern Europe to South-East Asia, in which octopods in enemy regimentals approach friendly shores from the sea with menacing looks and tentacles reaching inland, only somewhat undermined by the cute little top hats perched on their heads. This top hat comic isn’t very political, or menacing, & comes without a caption so I’m not really sure what it means. Other than Artie says it’s an illustration of the old adage that ‘If you’re going to sell a hat to a narwhal, you better make it a top hat’. That adage is about 5 minutes old because I’m pretty sure Artie just made it up as we were walking over to the gum wall.

Anyway, the whole thing came up because there was a long, out of context sequence in CHICKEN, PICKLE, DUCK & BOB about an octopus top hat salesman who worked on an ice floe south of New Zealand, selling his wares mostly to narwhals - and opposite a down-on-his-luck polar bear who was panhandling one ice floe over. We cut it from the prototype because it felt like a tangent, and polar bears live in the Arctic, not Antarctica, but the characters are still percolating, possibly to return in a sequel. If we can find a good backstory. -Ed. #russoturkishwarof1877