Talk:Cow tools

Rendering title - quotes vs italics

@Randy Kryn: re Special:Diff/1030099236, are you sure italics are correct for individual cartoons? MOS:MINORWORK lists "titled cartoons (not syndicated comic strips)" as minor works. My interpretation of this is that "Cow Tools" would go in quotes but The Far Side would be italicized. Colin M (talk) 00:50, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi Colin M. What I'm looking at and have gone by for years is MOS:ITALICTITLE which applies to named works of art: "Paintings, sculptures and other works of visual art with a title rather than a name (see MOS:VATITLE for more detail)". Titled individual cartoons in one panel would fall into this description as "other works of visual art". There seems a possible MOS contradiction here, unless I'm totally mistaken about what to me seems apparent. A commonly known and academically discussed titled cartoon has visual work of art written all over it. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:00, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I just noticed that WP:MOS#Names and titles is even more explicit about this. Quotation marks should be used for the following names and titles: [...] Individual strips from comics and webcomics (comics italicized). Based on this, I'm going to switch it back to quotation marks. Colin M (talk) 18:29, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

A comic strip would be a strip of three, four, or more panels, not an individual stand-alone cartoon as this is. Will switch it back. Randy Kryn (talk) 18:35, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@Randy Kryn: So you're saying the MoS treats an individual comic as a "minor work" if it has multiple panels, but it becomes a "major work" if it's a single panel comic? Where's the logic in that? Colin M (talk) 22:10, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

MOS:ITALICTITLE "Paintings, sculptures and other works of visual art with a title rather than a name (see MOS:VATITLE for more detail)" seems to apply. Probably in the same general category of editorial cartoons, which are treated as stand alone creations even though they are published as part of a specific newspaper. I don't know of any articles on stand-alone comic strips as works of art (what's the most famous individual three-four etc. panel comic with an article?, I can't think of one). The famous ones seem mostly one-panel (i.e. Keep on Truckin' LATER EDIT: Duh, Keep on Truckin' is multi-paneled, I remember it mentally as just that top panel) and stand-alone, notable as visual artworks. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:04, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Thinking about it you're probably right if "Cow Tools" is not the proper name as indicated by the uppercased title, but then shouldn't the article be named "Cow tools" reflecting the caption? That may be where we have opposite viewpoints, to me uppercasing the name takes it to the realm of proper names and thus a named artwork. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:33, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Found it, I guess Wikipedia doesn't call one-panels comic strips but a Gag cartoon. So we are discussing a gag cartoon and not a comic strip, if that makes a difference in definition relating to rules and regs (I usually go by w.'s commonsense area and haven't memorized the whole rulebook). Randy Kryn (talk) 00:45, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Maybe italics rest on if Larson upper or lowercased it in his book The Prehistory of the Far Side, which is used as a page source. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:49, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

I think the title case "Cow Tools" title is appropriate per WP:NCCAPS because, iirc, it is consistently capitalized in RS. As for the relevant policy, I think this case is much more akin to the policy guidance about "titled cartoons"/"individual strips from comics" (modulo the wording nitpicks) than it is to the guidance about "Paintings, sculptures and other works of visual art". Colin M (talk) 00:52, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

If uppercased then arguably it is a proper name of a visual artwork, as the title differs from the caption. In the case of the now miscapitalized Keep on Trucking' page (an RM moved "on" to uppercased "On", things like that keep me in the commonsense mode and not great wikilawyer material) it remains as an italicized name and could be subject to some form of the same dispute. As for this page, Cow Tools is not "Cow tools", and titling should make a difference in titling a visual art piece. Randy Kryn (talk) 01:14, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

It looks like we're not going to reach consensus on this. My inclination would be to make an RfC, unless you have any other suggestions. Colin M (talk) 17:20, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Cow Tool

What is it 71.174.206.184 (talk) 23:06, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Cow tools. Randy Kryn (talk) 19:07, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

RfC on formatting of title

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is a consensus to use quotation marks for the title of this most vexing cartoon. Despite some disagreement over whether this counts as a minor work or if it was elevated to the status of major work, most participants agreed that, as part of a series, the title should follow MOS:MINORWORK. To support this, some reliable sources were presented to show the common usage of quotation marks (or the lack of italics), this has also raised some questions about the capitalization of the title, though the discussion didn't evolve much and can be explored in a different thread if editors so wish. (non-admin closure) Isabelle ^🔔 04:06, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

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Should the title of this cartoon be written in quotation marks ("Cow Tools") or italics (Cow Tools)? Colin M (talk) 15:15, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

• Quotation marks, per the following guidelines:
  • MOS:MINORWORK: Examples of titles which are quoted but not italicized: [...] titled cartoons (not syndicated comic strips)
  • WP:MOS#Names and titles: Quotation marks should be used for the following names and titles: [...] Individual strips from comics and webcomics (comics italicized)
  Colin M (talk) 15:19, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Italics per a named work of art (see the longish discussion above which covers this topic). Notice that uppercasing Cow Tools promotes it to an individual name because the caption lowercases 'tools' and thus is not quoted as the title. This is not part of a comic strip but is considered a Gag cartoon which falls into the realm of well-known editorial cartoons, which are italicized. MOS:MINORWORK says "Another rule of thumb is that if the work is intended to stand alone and to be kept for later reference, or is likely to be seen as having merit as a stand-alone work, italicize it." (emphasis mine). Randy Kryn (talk) 16:11, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Neither – in The PreHistory of The Far Side: A 10th Anniversary Exhibit, Larson says

  The "Cow tools" episode is one that will probably haunt me for the rest of my life.

  So why can't we just call it Cow tools cartoon or "Cow tools" episode or something instead of elevating the caption to a title? Dicklyon (talk) 17:12, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

  Most sources, including basically all recent sources I'm able to find, refer to the cartoon as if its name is "Cow Tools" (or sometimes "Cow tools", which is another conversation):

  • NYTimes: While “Cow Tools” is funny on its own, sort of, it’s at least twice as funny with the knowledge that it vexed so many readers
  • New York Magazine: Despite Larson’s 2007 edict, at least one of his comic strips has grown famous online: 1982’s “Cow Tools,” which is among the very first group of strips republished online today.
  • The Guardian: Larson was referring to one of his most confusing strips, Cow tools, in which a cow stands in front of a bizarre (and somewhat disturbing) array of tools.
  • And a couple more questionable sources: A, B

  Colin M (talk) 17:49, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

  Agreed. It's not an episode but a well-known gag cartoon. Calling it Cow Tools cartoon seems redundant and duplicative to the common name. Randy Kryn (talk) 17:53, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

  I'm pretty sure that the "episode" in the provided quote is not the panel itself, but rather the following events caused by the panel. It would be wrong to call the panel itself an "episode". AquitaneHungerForce (talk) 21:22, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

  Good point. He meant the "episode" triggered by "Cow tools". Dicklyon (talk) 03:51, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  So "Cow tools" in quotes, no extra caps, seems good. It's one bit of a larger work, identified by its caption, not titled by the creator. Dicklyon (talk) 05:13, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• Not italics as The Far Side is the major work, and one sample of the series is like a chapter in a book or an episode of a television series. This one cartoon is a minor work and should therefore have quotation marks. Per WP:Manual of Style/Text formatting § Names and titles and WP:Manual of Style § Punctuation /Quotation marks /Names and titles. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 05:34, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Quotation marks, because it's a short work. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 04:47, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
• Quotation marks per JohnFromPinckney and Colin M. This is one piece of a larger work, so quotation marks make sense. The MOS guidelines quoted by Colin M confirm this. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 17:15, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

What does it mean?

Is it he meaning of life? Of death? Of something we all could never comprehend? Or is it just something used to distract us from the harshness of reality with some silly jokes and laughs. The only way to find out is to ask God about it. 104.192.24.224 (talk) 19:39, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I asked. I didn't comprehend the answer though. Dicklyon (talk) 03:52, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Add to See Also section

Perhaps cowsay would be related as it is a cow-oriented tool?  $Jayhawker6$【💬】 20:04, 14 February 2024 (UTC)