Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson for January 05, 2024

Dichromatic mammals probably think red is a made-up color, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they also think ultraviolet (which birds and reptiles can see, but mammals can’t) is a made-up color too.

It may seem like we’ve found a word that rhymes with orange but there are actually a few more words already found. Sporange: A technical word for spore sac.Blorenge: A mountain in Wales.

Well, she wanted to see things through a child’s eyes, and she’s making a childish joke. (A learned childish joke, but still immature.)

What? No octarine?

I’ve always been envious of creatures who can see ultraviolet. I compensate by giving my dragons the ability to see colors well into the ultraviolet and infrared; although, I find it difficult to find human words to describe what they see. Trust me. It’s beautiful.

I can’t seen glurple this is sad indeed.

Marigold said blurple is an unattractive color in a past strip and that Phoebe was lucky she couldn’t see it.

Years of reading fanfiction has taught me that urple is the most horrifying color.

If Marigold sees through Phoebe’s eyes, that means that she sees herself right now, like when she watches her own reflection. And we know what happens then, don’t we?

Of course, it’s possible that her limited colour vision makes her look less attractive than she normally sees herself.

My cousins and I have been using the word “blurple” since we were kids in the 1950s, for a bluish-purple hue. We may have made it up ourselves … or not. Too long ago to remember accurately.

It’s cute how her aura turned florange for an instant.

“The world is a carousel of color wonderful, wonderful color!”

Do the characters in this comic ever notice the constantly changing background colors?

Can’t see Flink, Doorflower or Bluce, either.

So, presumably we CAN see faint tinges of furple? well…that explains a LOT…

So unicorns are not like horses in their color vision. Otherwise Marigold would be impressed by the additional colors that humans can see.

What about octarine?

Marigold has made up colors before, so that’s a thing.

Oh, my, brings back memories of H.R. Puffenstuff. "People keep on saying that the word that is a jam, is “orange” ‘cause it’s got no rhyme. Well, I’ve got news for them!"

Don’t be grellow with envy.

There’s a real-world equivalent of this sort of vision capability, in what is known as the mantis shrimp (technically not a shrimp). Rather than post a modified link, I’ll let you do your own quick search.

Now I wanna see those colors.

Good thing you didn’t go for the human sense of smell, Marigold. Not only is it not worth a hill of beans, it can barely smell a hill of beans!

I’m surprised she didn’t get lost in her view of herself through Phoebe’s eyes.

Does Marigold see the coulor of magic?

Florange is fake. I’ve seen glurple and blurple.

But can she see in Octarine?

No, Phoebe, unicorns just have a lot of different words for shades of octarine.

This is weird in a good way.

I was gonna say that I don’t think any real words rhyme with either purple or orange. However, Cody above taught me something.

Fun colors here from Marigold, too.

Irrigo, Violant, Cosmogone, Peligin, Apocyan, Viric, and Gant!

As a human with deuteranopia, I sometimes wonder what other people can see that I can’t.