The Graph Giraffe is a comic in Madison, Wisconsin’s Daily Cardinal student newspaper.
The comic has appeared daily since May 2008 and features a giraffe pointing to the simple correlation of the day. The very first Graph Giraffe comic is notorious for the controversy it sparked throughout the city of Madison. The axes read “American students with ethnic sounding last names,” and “Undeserved scholarships granted.” Although author Yosef Lerner claims he was referencing how college admissions councils have no way of testing an applicant’s true nationality, it was misinterpreted as being a message against affirmative action. In response, many minority groups were outraged and the newspaper was forced to issue a formal apology.
Since this initial mishap, The Graph Giraffe has become extremely popular on the UW-Madison campus.
The original giraffe image created by the author consists of a full-bodied giraffe donning eyeglasses, a graduation style cap, and carrying a wand in its mouth. It is always placed to the left of the graph and has remained the same throughout most issues of the comic. This default image occasionally changes to sport a giraffe with different accessories. Past images have included a cowboy rendition (complete with cowboy hat, sunglasses, and western style lasso necklace), a bandana replacing the cap, and a heart hidden among the giraffe's many spots during the 2009 Valentine's Day edition.
The graph portion of the comic generally consists of a simple line graph depicted as an arrow indicating a positive slope or negative slope, depending on the correlation that day. However, this also occasionally changes to include a more complex line graph, a circle graph, and on one occasion to-date, a graphic unrepresentative of an actual graph altogether.
The Graph Giraffe ended in December 2011 featuring a farewell message from Lerner to his readers.