Why do cartoon characters read backwards?
February 26, 2006 1:08 PM   Subscribe

Why do characters in cartoons read books backwards, flipping pages from (their) left to right? It's always bugged me since I was a kid, and I always put it down to shoddy animation. Then, I noticed Meatwad reading a book backwards on a recent ATHF. What gives? Is it just some weird industry convention, or am I missing something?
posted by paul_smatatoes to Media & Arts (26 answers total)
 
This is a good question. I noticed the phenomenon on an episode of South Park, but the IMDB just lists it as a goof.
posted by bonaldi at 1:18 PM on February 26, 2006


Because a lot of animation is done on the cheap in Asia, where books are read backwards (in comparison to the West)?
posted by Orange Goblin at 1:20 PM on February 26, 2006


1) They're reading the Torah. Or, as cartoon characters defying the laws of physics, they're referring to textbooks in advanced algebra.
2) As abstractions of reality, animated characters reflect the dynamics of dream states. Without self-awareness in dreaming (lucidity), perception can be skewed. The episode Perchance to Dream" in Batman: The Animated Series reflects this, but erroneously states that one can never read coherently in a dream.
3) The animators could've goofed, borrowing the right-to-left motif from (live-action) feature films, where an actor might've thumbed back pages in a hotel guest registry or bank ledger.
4) It's a cartoon. Suspension of disbelief is the linga franca.
posted by Smart Dalek at 1:27 PM on February 26, 2006


You'll also notice that many, many cartoon characters are left-handed. I (as a lefty, who tends to notice these things) always assumed that it's just natural for right-handed people to draw them that way (like looking in a mirror). Maybe the backwards-book thing is the same deal.
posted by uncleozzy at 1:38 PM on February 26, 2006


An easy explanation, also congruous with what uncleozzy said, is that somewhere between the cartoons being turned into a film and the cartoons being drawn on the paper, the entire scene is flipped (over the Y axis).
posted by GooseOnTheLoose at 1:52 PM on February 26, 2006


Also, why do characters in cartoons sometimes have four fingers when real humans usually have five?
posted by grouse at 1:54 PM on February 26, 2006


grouse - that's economics. The fewer the fingers, the less articulation to draw.
posted by Smart Dalek at 2:02 PM on February 26, 2006


Most modern animation is produced in Asia, where it is common to read books in what we would consider reverse.
posted by solid-one-love at 2:33 PM on February 26, 2006


Gah. Missed Orange Goblin's post.
posted by solid-one-love at 2:33 PM on February 26, 2006


If it had to do with asian reading preferences, wouldn't the cover of the books be on the back and not the front? I recently noticed this in an episode of the Simpsons, and I think it has more to do with cell animation, where the drawings are painted and lined in reverse. Or maybe they stack the different cells in the wrong order?
posted by crunchland at 3:18 PM on February 26, 2006


why do movie characters never say 'bye' when they hang up the phone? THAT has always bugged me. They NEVER do. They simply hang up. Even in the most 'realistic' movies they do this. How realistic is that?
posted by jak68 at 3:27 PM on February 26, 2006


Cartoonists use mirrors all the time, don't they? In order to visualise an action or expression, they do it in the mirror and draw what they see.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 3:53 PM on February 26, 2006


My guess is that it's to do with the way cels are inked and painted - if I remember right, it's always on the reverse, so it would make sense to say that to the inker, the action is going in the correct direction.
Of course, modern animation being what it is, they could've kept it this way as a tradition, a tip-of-the-hat gesture, or an in-joke.
posted by Incharitable Dog at 4:16 PM on February 26, 2006


At least in this episode, Bart Simpson reads (or rather tries to read) books from front to back, not backwards. (I just looked at the episode, the reading is not mentioned in the Wikipedia article.)
posted by iviken at 4:32 PM on February 26, 2006


I would expect Meatwad, specifically, to read books backwards because he's a dumb wad of meat. What does Meatwad do right?
posted by mendel at 5:25 PM on February 26, 2006


Interesting note: When Japanese Manga is translated to English, it is often mirrored along the vertical axis so that the panels flow the way westerners expect. Book covers and such would then usually be translated and the translation would be pasted onto the "correct" side.

The end result is that you shouldn't be seeing anyone reading a book backwards, but almost all the characters will appear to be left handed.
posted by krisjohn at 5:53 PM on February 26, 2006


Response by poster: but Frylock was flipping the pages for Meatwad, iirc, and he always does everything right, so that's why I got to wonderin'
posted by paul_smatatoes at 8:47 PM on February 26, 2006


I'm a lefty who flips through magazines from back to front. I can't help it.
posted by planetkyoto at 9:07 PM on February 26, 2006


In my Cinema critical studies class, we were taught that left-to-right movement onscreen is more fluid to the audience's eye than right-to-left. I can't remember the why's and wherefore's now, but I assume that a character flipping pages back to front, being left to right to the audience's eye, is more pleasing than if it were in the accurate direction. I assume this fluidity pertains only to western audiences. Hope my explantation isn't too vague.
posted by Radio7 at 12:55 AM on February 27, 2006


jak68: I started trying not to say goodbye when I hang up the phone. After a while, it became second nature. Essentially, you sound a lot cooler when you don't say bye—but a lot of people are mildly confused by it. ;)

Don't let that stop you, though—they get used to it.
posted by limeonaire at 1:16 AM on February 27, 2006


An easy explanation, also congruous with what uncleozzy said, is that somewhere between the cartoons being turned into a film and the cartoons being drawn on the paper, the entire scene is flipped (over the Y axis).

This was my first instinct as well. Were I drawing a cartoon, I'd probably get confused and have a hard time remembering/visualizing which way I was supposed to draw it to make it go the right way. I'm sure real animators have it down pat--they either don't care, or there's some sort of tradition of drawing it wrong like suggested above.

Also, I see a lot of "backwards" reality show scenes as well. A participant will be wearing a graphic tee or something, and it will be backward in one scene, forward in the other. My guess is that it's up to the editors which way things are flipped, not the animators or anyone else. (I have absolutely no experience with any of this. The only reason I even knew cartoons were flipped was because of a Peanuts "behind the scenes" special I watched when I was like 5--it stuck with me).

why do movie characters never say 'bye' when they hang up the phone? THAT has always bugged me. They NEVER do. They simply hang up. Even in the most 'realistic' movies they do this. How realistic is that?

I noticed this especially about the show Seventh Heaven (don't judge me!). I always assumed it would be to same time. All those "bye"s add up over the course of a movie/series, just like all those fifth fingers would add up in a cartoon. Relatively recently, (maybe beginning of last season?) a character commented on it--"no one ever says 'goodbye' in this family! You just hang up!"
posted by lampoil at 4:46 AM on February 27, 2006


Because a lot of animation is done on the cheap in Asia, where books are read backwards (in comparison to the West)?

Koreans do not read this way, although others may. Much animation for American cartoons is done in Korea.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:48 AM on February 27, 2006


They're not reading the book, they're showing it to you, like your kindergarten teacher used to do.
posted by yesster at 7:07 AM on February 27, 2006


The not saying goodbye on the phone thing seems like a uniquely American thing. As a Canadian, I can always tell when I've talked with an American (or ex-American) by the fact that I'm missing the "bye" at the end of the phone conversation. Even most newer immigrants to Canada from all sorts of other countries seem to end their phone conversations with a "bye" (or similar) if they are fluent in English.
posted by shepd at 7:40 AM on February 27, 2006


I have a teacher who worked as a professional animator (on the Simpsons among other things), I'll ask him to see if he has a perspective.
posted by drezdn at 4:32 PM on February 27, 2006


According to my teacher, if a character is reading a book backwards, the camera operator probably read the exposure sheets wrong (x-sheets).
posted by drezdn at 10:23 PM on March 14, 2006


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