I agree, not funny. There is no reason to genderize some toys. I am sick of seeing stuff for boys that’s all action and adventure and building while the girls get kitchen junk, dolls, and anything turned pink. Even Lego had more girls in their ads only a couple decades ago. Just let kids like toys and stop telling them what they Should like.
On another level, sports stores have pink camo gear in the girls’ section. I guess to not scare off the baby animals in the pink and white forest. Um… what season is that for again?
Since deer, elk,moose, etc. are supposed to be color blind, I always thought it would be sensible to make camo in safety orange, hot pink, and electric green combos…only turkey would see the difference and they’d probably be so busy laughing that they’d be easy to pick off.
Well, the way camo works is the pattern combined with the general color difference between what the hunter is wearing and what the background is. So even if Deer saw in monochrome (what people normally mean by color blind), they would still be able to notice the sharp change in tone of color from the background elements if the color was too terribly off. (they don’t actually see in monochrome, by the by. While they do have a much lower amount and density of cones, they instead have an increased number and much higher density of rods. This allows for less broad and strong color vision, but an increased amount of vision in low-light settings…and also doesn’t make them color blind, especially not in the way people assume (ie: monochromatic black and white vision). Deer are red/green color deficient in the same way that some humans can be. Incidentally, dogs are also color deficient in this exact same way. Don’t buy a red toy for a dog and go playing with it in green grass. Get a blue one.)
Woah, Ryan Sohmer (Least I Can Do) just had a similar idea about gender and toys. I read the blog post today. Was there something in the news when I wasn’t paying attention?
Guns. All children should play with guns. Guns are sort of gender neutral, and species neutral – they kill male and female, snakes or deer or people, just the same.
Most of us who grew up playing with guns came out relatively normal … in a sort of law-man-gunslinger instead of bank-robber-gunslinger kind of sense of normal. Although, admittedly, pistols with pink handles were still the exclusive domain of the female gun-carrying element. So maybe they aren’t as gender neutral one would first think.
I love that you have no idea what an Easy Bake Oven looks like and didn’t look it up! I get too bogged down in those kind of details. You just draw it!
While I thought it made sense for the boy who wanted to use an Easy-Bake oven, I wondered why he thought the purple (with pink accents) necessarily made it a girl’s color.
Oh man, Adam, the last panel is going to cast a shitstorm at tumblr.
I guarantee, soon you’ll get zealots and bigots who will shout “HOW DARE YOU CLAIM THAT PERSON WHO DOESN’T STICK TO ONE OF THE GENDERS IS CONFUSED? YOU ARE THE ONE WHO CONFUSED!”
Just don’t cave in, okay? Don’t apologize, don’t remove/edit the comic. All they can do is bark, not bite, and it’s fucking hilarious
Okay, gonna be a pedant because I think it’s an important thing to know. (This is my first comment during my archive binge so–nice job on the comics.)
Toys being “gender neutral” doesn’t mean the characters don’t have genders. It’s not even always about the toys themselves but rather how they’re packaged and marketed. In toy stores, there are usually “boy” aisles with vehicles and action figures and then “girl” aisles with dolls and… more dolls, and lots of pink. Since some boys play with dolls and some girls play with literally anything besides dolls, there’s been a push to combine the two areas into a single gender-neutral toy aisle. This would remove some of the stigma of kids playing with toys that aren’t specifically marketed to their gender. (In practice, I think part of it is to keep parents from saying “you can’t play with that, it’s in a pink package. I don’t want you growing up gay” or something.)
This … this is so funny on so many levels
I agree, not funny. There is no reason to genderize some toys. I am sick of seeing stuff for boys that’s all action and adventure and building while the girls get kitchen junk, dolls, and anything turned pink. Even Lego had more girls in their ads only a couple decades ago. Just let kids like toys and stop telling them what they Should like.
Uhm… he said it’s “so funny”, not “not funny”?
I utterly fail to see how you reached that conclusion from BugFan’s comment…
-The joke-
*WOOSH*
-Your head-
On another level, sports stores have pink camo gear in the girls’ section. I guess to not scare off the baby animals in the pink and white forest. Um… what season is that for again?
Sakura trees in japan have pink and white petals.
Good to have camo there, too, since the japanese killer bee is native to sakura forests.
Since deer, elk,moose, etc. are supposed to be color blind, I always thought it would be sensible to make camo in safety orange, hot pink, and electric green combos…only turkey would see the difference and they’d probably be so busy laughing that they’d be easy to pick off.
Well, the way camo works is the pattern combined with the general color difference between what the hunter is wearing and what the background is. So even if Deer saw in monochrome (what people normally mean by color blind), they would still be able to notice the sharp change in tone of color from the background elements if the color was too terribly off. (they don’t actually see in monochrome, by the by. While they do have a much lower amount and density of cones, they instead have an increased number and much higher density of rods. This allows for less broad and strong color vision, but an increased amount of vision in low-light settings…and also doesn’t make them color blind, especially not in the way people assume (ie: monochromatic black and white vision). Deer are red/green color deficient in the same way that some humans can be. Incidentally, dogs are also color deficient in this exact same way. Don’t buy a red toy for a dog and go playing with it in green grass. Get a blue one.)
Panel three… omigod… way too funny.
Third panel has me in stitches. I don’t even know why! Just too funny.
I already lost it at “HE-PERSON”. Now I can’t stop thinking about other possibilities:
SUPER-PERSON
BAT-PERSON
WONDER-PERSON
AQUA-PERSON
SPIDER-PERSON
IRON-PERSON
And many more!
just wait until chimpanzees become sapient(any day now…), then it’ll be intolerant to call things persons and it’ll be “SUPER-ORGANISM”
Darn them touchy monkeys and their species issues!
Y’know, I think it should be THEY- person.
(P.S. I’m making a joke)
How does a person come up with the idea of a tank that wets itself?
That’s just… awesome!
They did it in Jimmy Neutron once, but that was… different.
I too am moist!
Very good
This is the first in a while that truly made me laugh, good one!
Now all we need is a female superhero named “Captain _______.”
What about “Captain Bolivia”?
That’s good.
all I could come up with was: “Captain Menopause” and her awesome powers of Hot and Cold.
Captain Men-o-Pause !!
Captain Marvel
The greatest captain.
Woah, Ryan Sohmer (Least I Can Do) just had a similar idea about gender and toys. I read the blog post today. Was there something in the news when I wasn’t paying attention?
When I was young, I played with boy toys, girl toys, and toys that were kinda in the middle.(Ex for kinda in the middle: plushie dinosaurs)
I played with my little sister’s toys… but not in ways that she liked. Usually practicing my surgical skills.
Guns. All children should play with guns. Guns are sort of gender neutral, and species neutral – they kill male and female, snakes or deer or people, just the same.
Most of us who grew up playing with guns came out relatively normal … in a sort of law-man-gunslinger instead of bank-robber-gunslinger kind of sense of normal. Although, admittedly, pistols with pink handles were still the exclusive domain of the female gun-carrying element. So maybe they aren’t as gender neutral one would first think.
guns also kill snake-deer-people.
I love that you have no idea what an Easy Bake Oven looks like and didn’t look it up! I get too bogged down in those kind of details. You just draw it!
Actually I did look it up, but there were so many different versions I just said screw it and drew a tiny oven.
M… person, fridays always make me sad. Two days without new bugmartini wonderfullnessishness.
I don’t like weekends anymore.
I wonder, would the tank be a… “Pissing Panzer?”
you win
Sherman Shat-m’self?
If gender-mixed toys are okay, then “He-Person” might not work, but “She-Man” would.
That name is reserved for websites kids aren’t allowed to visit.
It would have to be “It-Person” to really work.
And the knockoff, “They-Individual”
While I thought it made sense for the boy who wanted to use an Easy-Bake oven, I wondered why he thought the purple (with pink accents) necessarily made it a girl’s color.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/12/17/unisex-easy-bake-oven/1775955/
So, with balls, are the beach balls male and the kick balls female, or vice versa? I find it amusing that THOSE are the 2 genders of balls.
HE SAID STOP LABELING HIM
*ahem* “Ze said stop labeling hir.”
kid nerd bug is adorable!
Oh man, Adam, the last panel is going to cast a shitstorm at tumblr.
I guarantee, soon you’ll get zealots and bigots who will shout “HOW DARE YOU CLAIM THAT PERSON WHO DOESN’T STICK TO ONE OF THE GENDERS IS CONFUSED? YOU ARE THE ONE WHO CONFUSED!”
Just don’t cave in, okay? Don’t apologize, don’t remove/edit the comic. All they can do is bark, not bite, and it’s fucking hilarious
Okay, gonna be a pedant because I think it’s an important thing to know. (This is my first comment during my archive binge so–nice job on the comics.)
Toys being “gender neutral” doesn’t mean the characters don’t have genders. It’s not even always about the toys themselves but rather how they’re packaged and marketed. In toy stores, there are usually “boy” aisles with vehicles and action figures and then “girl” aisles with dolls and… more dolls, and lots of pink. Since some boys play with dolls and some girls play with literally anything besides dolls, there’s been a push to combine the two areas into a single gender-neutral toy aisle. This would remove some of the stigma of kids playing with toys that aren’t specifically marketed to their gender. (In practice, I think part of it is to keep parents from saying “you can’t play with that, it’s in a pink package. I don’t want you growing up gay” or something.)