h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This isn't a joke, but why oh why hasn't anyone done anything on Rupert bear?

if no-one says they will, i will feel obliged to, and i really don't think i am fully capable of such an enormous entry yet

steve

If you want I will write it with you

There are a lot of others missing too

1) Teddy Tail
2) Wind in the Willows
3) Basil Brush

and many others perhaps this should become a University project?

Rupert Bear was about 35th in my list of entries I might get around to one day. (I know I never will)

I'll follow this with interest. I grew up with the optimistic ursine, as I'm sure millions of us did.

I used to run an occasional game thread on the BBC Radio 4 messageboards called the Rupert Game. I'd start the thread with a topical title (e.g. "Rupert and the GM Disaster") and some prose, to set the scene, then everyone else would continue the story in the well-known style, using rhyming couplets. It was hilarious. If the article ever gets written, then I may try it again here.

Icy

Opti, if there isn't an entry on Basil Brush, then what's this?

A534845

Perhaps any entry on Rupert Bear ought itself to be written in rhyming couplets ...

I knew I should have put a question mark next to his name as I hadn't checked that one

That's a brilliant idea, SEF. What a challenge! We could compile it here, collectively...

but who exactly would be part of it?

i mean which charactors.

Hi Steve,

Well it's an unconventional approach, and I'm sure it will have some opposition. The easy way out is for someone just to write the bog-standard prose guide entry. But if a rhyming-couplet version was good-enough quality, then I don't see how they could refuse to accept it. It would have to follow the writing guidelines as far as possible, and it would have to be interesting enough to read - include all the salient facts, history, etc. I think it would be in the spirit of the guide.

Yes, we would need to cover all the regular characters: Bill Badger, Algy Pug, etc.

What do you think?

As to the mechanics, we could invite people to write a few couplets/strings of couplets about different aspects of RB, and then we could glue them together. We'd need a working version of the article to link to. It might be best to run this from the collaborative writing workshop? (if that's what it's called - I don't often visit)

For example, it could start (off the top of my head):

In 1920 the Daily Express
Published a cartoon the nation would bless...

For "source" material there are already some sites around, eg the wiki entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Bear

and this "official" one:
http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~afm/followers/creators.html

> "it could start ..."

Hmm... that doesn't scan nor have the 8.6.8.6 I'd expect from previous Rupert stuff.

PS I'm "sad" enough to have written a Rupert-style thing before - though not about Rupert himself!

I can see we're in the presence of an expert

Yes it should scan, of course. It was only illustrative.

What were the circumstances of your last Rupert-style composition, SEF? (makes me sound like a shrink)

I really can't remember - and I'd been trying even before you asked. I suppose it might have been something for the Tolkien society or merely for a younger sibling or other relative.

PS Subject to fact-checking (eg on dates of other comics):

The twenties were a fruitful time
For comics ev'rywhere;
And not the least among these strips
Was that of Rupert Bear.

Brilliant!

This white-furred creature, smartly-dressed
In jumper, pants and scarf,
Would gaily solve each crisis with
an optimistic laugh.

These rhyming couplets illustrate
The picture caption style
That Mary Tourtel used to make
The stories so facile.

(best I could do)

Ah, I'd just come back to add this (and remember the space smiley since indents at the start of lines don't work in plain text here):

The author of our furry friend,
And illustrator too,
Was Mary Tourtel. Later works
Kept to the bear she drew.