Sunday, 24 July 2005 07:45 pm
I know there are comic strip lovers reading....
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deckardcanineIn my experience, many of those who either say they "like comics" or suggest so by frequenting forums devoted to a particular comic will also declare that they have no use for all but a few comics. I don't see nearly the same extent for other media. Do you know anyone who claims to like movies but can't even name 10 worth watching?
I am not such a person. While I have raised my standards for what comics I bother to view regularly online, those that appear in my papers don't take much to merit my attention. I sometimes wish that certain comics not quite worth downloading would appear in my paper. (Considering how fast my modem is and how I spend my breaks at work, this may seem ridiculous, but that's me.) Only a few comics usually make me wish I hadn't bothered to read them on the page; they may take a while for me to train myself not to look, unless the artwork turned me off in the first place.
Now, when the Washington Post announced at the start of the year that one of the newcomers was "Prickly City," I thought, oh brother, this is not going to go down well. I can't say I was surprised, since the Post still had an overall liberal image - particularly in the comics section, with "The Boondocks," "Doonesbury," and "Non Sequitur" - despite a few things it's done to prove itself not on our side. But Rain Luong, in a rare moment, singled PC out in an LJ entry for his especial hatred due not to its general conservatism but to a storyline that likened same-sex marriage to child-animal marriage, a comparison that was both harsh and absurd. (If it makes you feel better about the Post, they added the bitingly liberal "Candorville" at the same time.)
But here's where my tolerant nature got in the way: the first couple PC episodes I saw had nothing to do with politics. Goofy little nothings happened involving a coyote, a young girl, and sometimes a gecko. Unlike so many PC non-fans, I didn't think the art was ugly. The landscape gave it character like in "Pogo," and the weirdly shaped moon was a signature. Mainly I liked the animals, and I have to admit that I would not have given PC - or several other comics, for that matter - much of a chance without them. Some readers thought that the girl was a pickaninny caricature, but to me that didn't make sense for the resident conservative. Others thought cartoonist Scott Stantis, whose name doesn't exactly sound African American, was using one as a spokesperson to discourage critics for fear of accusations of racism, but I thought it just as likely that he merely wanted to diversify the comics page and thereby make it more interesting.
It didn't take long for the politics to emerge, but I rationalized that I was looking at both sides to broaden myself. It could be fun to laugh at my own party or end of the spectrum, and I figured it was only fair to evaluate the comic with the same criteria as for liberal ones. Besides, the main liberal in PC was a cutie, so Stantis couldn't hate us much, right? Sometimes I even agreed with him, a recent example being when Eminent Domain's wrecking ball hit a lemonade stand with the owner still in it. Intellectually I remembered the marriage joke, but not having seen it for myself, I decided to overlook it and hope that Stantis had learned his lesson. In short, I was not a fan per se, but I was an apologist.
So when did the madness end? Yesterday, upon viewing the Sunday strip. It makes fun of airport security, a topic somewhat hackneyed but still up to date and basically agreeable - until you get to the part where the passenger asks, "Shouldn't you ask my nationality? Or religion or something?" Whereupon the personnel says, "Oh no, that would be profiling!!!" Unlike certain apparent readers of "Mallard Fillmore" who wondered if a highly self-deprecating MF episode in America (The Book) was untampered, I know to see a portion of something as satire when the entire rest of the thing is satire. Stantis favors security specific to nationality and/or religion. For once, I cannot dismiss the irreconcilable difference between us.
Scotty boy, I'm afraid you just lost yourself an apologist.
I am not such a person. While I have raised my standards for what comics I bother to view regularly online, those that appear in my papers don't take much to merit my attention. I sometimes wish that certain comics not quite worth downloading would appear in my paper. (Considering how fast my modem is and how I spend my breaks at work, this may seem ridiculous, but that's me.) Only a few comics usually make me wish I hadn't bothered to read them on the page; they may take a while for me to train myself not to look, unless the artwork turned me off in the first place.
Now, when the Washington Post announced at the start of the year that one of the newcomers was "Prickly City," I thought, oh brother, this is not going to go down well. I can't say I was surprised, since the Post still had an overall liberal image - particularly in the comics section, with "The Boondocks," "Doonesbury," and "Non Sequitur" - despite a few things it's done to prove itself not on our side. But Rain Luong, in a rare moment, singled PC out in an LJ entry for his especial hatred due not to its general conservatism but to a storyline that likened same-sex marriage to child-animal marriage, a comparison that was both harsh and absurd. (If it makes you feel better about the Post, they added the bitingly liberal "Candorville" at the same time.)
But here's where my tolerant nature got in the way: the first couple PC episodes I saw had nothing to do with politics. Goofy little nothings happened involving a coyote, a young girl, and sometimes a gecko. Unlike so many PC non-fans, I didn't think the art was ugly. The landscape gave it character like in "Pogo," and the weirdly shaped moon was a signature. Mainly I liked the animals, and I have to admit that I would not have given PC - or several other comics, for that matter - much of a chance without them. Some readers thought that the girl was a pickaninny caricature, but to me that didn't make sense for the resident conservative. Others thought cartoonist Scott Stantis, whose name doesn't exactly sound African American, was using one as a spokesperson to discourage critics for fear of accusations of racism, but I thought it just as likely that he merely wanted to diversify the comics page and thereby make it more interesting.
It didn't take long for the politics to emerge, but I rationalized that I was looking at both sides to broaden myself. It could be fun to laugh at my own party or end of the spectrum, and I figured it was only fair to evaluate the comic with the same criteria as for liberal ones. Besides, the main liberal in PC was a cutie, so Stantis couldn't hate us much, right? Sometimes I even agreed with him, a recent example being when Eminent Domain's wrecking ball hit a lemonade stand with the owner still in it. Intellectually I remembered the marriage joke, but not having seen it for myself, I decided to overlook it and hope that Stantis had learned his lesson. In short, I was not a fan per se, but I was an apologist.
So when did the madness end? Yesterday, upon viewing the Sunday strip. It makes fun of airport security, a topic somewhat hackneyed but still up to date and basically agreeable - until you get to the part where the passenger asks, "Shouldn't you ask my nationality? Or religion or something?" Whereupon the personnel says, "Oh no, that would be profiling!!!" Unlike certain apparent readers of "Mallard Fillmore" who wondered if a highly self-deprecating MF episode in America (The Book) was untampered, I know to see a portion of something as satire when the entire rest of the thing is satire. Stantis favors security specific to nationality and/or religion. For once, I cannot dismiss the irreconcilable difference between us.
Scotty boy, I'm afraid you just lost yourself an apologist.
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Hello
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alright. I should be on now, actually