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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
dust1969
Published Letters: 566 Editor's Choice: 3
As a cartoonist myself I find this strip offensive to the eye to begin with. This is the work of dilettantes with a tin eye who think that a cartoon is nothing more than illustrated text. Reinforced by the sloppy font, for one thing(did you know that using a tiny font, which they do to crowd all that dialogue into the first frame, reads as whispering?). I wouldn't go so far as to say it's done in MS Paint. This looks like it's done in Powerpoint.
Carol Lay is a CARTOONIST. This, however, is a journalist and an illustrator, probably both excellent in their usual fields, who thought to themselves, "Ah, this couldn't be that hard." As these are the sort who'd think that comics are just easier writing for illiterates, one wonders why they'd bother. But judging from its dashed-off, sloppy, and lazy look(how many times will Bachtell paste in the same identical faces? At least Tom Tomorrow doesn't pretend he's not using clip art), I guess they didn't.
And did I mention nothing in the INTRODUCTORY STRIPS has happened that could possibly grip a new reader? At first I thought this was a parody, if a weak one. But it's not. It's not ironic, it's just bad.
And who exactly is this executive's daydream meant to appeal to, with all the smug elitist(economically, not artistically) references to certain wines and French phrases dropped in for no real reason? Why, the kind of wealthy, vaguely-liberal(but not committed), NPR-centric, Hamptons-vacationing, conspicuously-consumptive readership Salon has been trying to cultivate, as signalled by their fawning piece about Alice Waters, as well as any of Fahrad Manjoo's pieces(which are written with the assumption of wealth on the part of the reader). The kind of people who would have eaten nouvelle cuisine and actually claimed to like it. Who would deeply identify with UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN. The people who don't even notice you walking the other way and try to knock you down while their cellphones are stapled to their ears. Who claim to hate George Bush but are the only ones who've economically benefitted from his reign. Liberal versions of Patrick Bateman, basically.
And who don't read cartoons, and even if they did, wouldn't know a good one if it bit them hard upon the hindquarters.
Stop this thing and put Carol back in her slot. It's painful. I imagine you're getting a lot of pageviews of it solely because of amazement at its utter badness. That will last you exactly three, maybe four, weeks. Then the novelty will wear off.
We're laughing AT you. Don't you get it?
Why would Keillor have to invest in that to begin with?
Oh right, he wouldn't. So why is he clucking his tongues going on about how much wiser he is than those(I'm not among them) who did?
Even if(sigh) we have to wait an extra three days for it.
You're not listening. I was too subtle last time, I see. I'll be direct.
Look: It sucks, it stops. That's supposed to be a law of nature. You are spitting upon nature itself.
People get angry when they look at it, and their adrenaline increases, and they breathe harder. And that makes more carbon dioxide. You, Salon, are contributing to global warming. For shame.
But no, you laugh and think, well, a pageview's a pageview, even to look at an ugly freak. Like this strip that keeps murmuring imperceptibly, "I don't...know...what...I'm doing. Please...kill me..." But alas, no editor listens to it.
Will your crimes against Mother Earth and we pitiful things crawling upon it, looking for a laugh and finding only this pain, ever stop, o Salon?
Just stop. It's easy.
This strip...I mean...It's, it's like sea urchins being scraped across my eyes every timer I look at it, except that those would make more interesting designs.
Please.
Just.
Make.
The.
Bad.
Strip.
Stop.
For the love of this, our planet.
Actually, people fear I may be anemic, but never mind. To respond to this:
... to be compelled to read a comic strip that one hates, week after week. Surely the only thing worse is the tragic compulsion to then spend additional precious minutes of one's life writing a letter detailing exactly how one feels.
Well, it doesn't take that long to come up with; the strip is so very bad it brings a peculiar kind of immediate inspiration. So it does do good in the world, I guess. It makes Salon readers very eloquent, very fast.
But here's the thing: there is nothing as bad as a bad comic. A good comic is a delight, cherished, read and re-read and passed around and like that. But a bad comic simply has no reason to exist. Having done bad comics, I can tell you: these people have no idea what a true assault of comics criticism is like.
But we like Salon, and like comics in Salon, and like seeing them on Tuesdays. We look forward to it, like milk delivered to our door, say. And if on Tuesday, that milk is spoiled, spiked with E. coli, and makes us violently ill, then I think we've a right to at least vomit and complain to the milkman, because the milk could just as easily be good as bad. It does the milkman no good to give us sour milk. We might pay attention to some other milkman.
There used to be smooth, creamy delicious milk on Tuesdays in this abortion's space. We'd like Carol to deliver it that day again.
I wonder: do pageviews of the letters count toward those for the strip? And if so, could Salon use this evil marketing power on behalf of a good strip, if one which isn't Carol's must be here? May I suggest Sam Henderson's Magic Whistle? It would compliment Keith Knight quite well, and he makes you laugh till your guts bleed.
Whereas just looking at this strip makes my eyes bleed.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
