This panel is the one most misprinted in the history of Geranium Lake Properties color printing errors. It is accepted as common knowledge that no newspaper, out of the 17 that printed GLP in color, got it right. According to Ha Kim Ngoc, it is Yost’s least favorite misprint, an opinion she expressed to Michael Veerduer at the Strand bookstore, where they were both attending an event celebrating the 6th anniversary reprint of The Boy in the Yellow Leatherette Portmanteau by Gralie Bohe. A part of their conversation appeared in print in the New York Review of Books, June 10, 2010.
In the universe of Geranium Lake Properties, mild steel is the nickname for a legal psychoactive drug commonly used by the Hahnquikzarra* (short form is Quikkir), the mainstream culture that exists outside of Jackalopian tradition. The culture is assumed to be modern American life, since the geography of GLP is often set within the United States. Most people have guessed that mild steel is a synonym for caffeine, but the GLP historian Michael Veerduer argues that caffeine, in the form of coffee, occupies a sacred place in Jackalopian tradition. He also points out that one of the most significant qualities of mild steel is its lethality for children. Other people have proposed mild steel as a representation of nicotine or firearms.
Pictured here is the misprint from the Toronto Star. More misprints can be viewed in this poster for sale at Zazzle.
*Probably the same culture identified as the Hahnoqqiplu, or the Hahnoquimmish.
Vraicking 