Letters to the Editor
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It has dawned on me!
I think I finally understand why Salon is running this atrocious, pretentious garbage.
It is an effort from Toni Schlesinger.
To improve it, I suggest Salon simply run a blank, one-panel cartoon in its place that states "Toni Schlesinger wrote this sentence."
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Monday Night Blues...
The only reason I check this comic is for the intriguing letters section that always accompanies it. They should indeed run the blank pages and let us all pop on and complain about the topic of the day.
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Com-ICK
I didn't think it was possible, but this strip gets worse every week. It is absolutely pretentious drivel with no redeeming value. The fact that Salon keeps running what has to be the worst comic I've EVER seen despite the protestations of its readership says a great deal about the decline of this site.
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Ignoring for the moment...
...the drivel that is supposed to pass for dialog, someone should at least make an attempt at editing this strip for content. Beni should take off her "helmet" rather than her "helmut."
Also, whoever is stuck with editing duties can also fix such non sequiturs as the exchange below:
"You forgot to take off your helmut."
"Some jerk, never mind..."
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Pretentious?
Pronunciation:
pri-ˈten(t)-shəs
Function:
adjective
Etymology:
French prétentieux, from prétention pretension, from Medieval Latin pretention-, pretentio, from Latin praetendere
Date: 1832
1: characterized by pretension: as
a: making usually unjustified or excessive claims (as of value or standing)
b: expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature
2: making demands on one's skill, ability, or means : ambitious
Nah ... I don't think it's pretentious as such ....
What I do think it is, is an intricate graphic novel that we get to see in weekly parcels. Life is not long enough ... or empty enough.
As I remember it, BBC 7 radio once read some book by Charles Dickens -- 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week for a year. Like anybody was gonna make the commitment.
Ah well. So it goes.
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Well, just continue to not invite readers to the party, then...
Geez, you guys. This isn't a comic strip--this is a giggly, unbearably smug info-dump about characters we can't care about and events we don't give a damm about. And I get the awful feeling that even if the author/artist condescended to let us in on the joke, it would be about as funny as six Williamsburg-designed caskets. If this is some funky net misdirection experiment designed so that irate readers can provide the real entertainment by dissing this mess, I'll be happy to continue obliging...:)
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Helmut?
I am sure that Helmut was the Prime Minister of Germany back when Richard Nixon's Postmaster General Winton M. Blount proposed a reorganization of the Post Office Department that took himself out of the Cabinet.
Nixon's Cabinet. Not Helmut's.
There could be double agents and triple-crosses awaiting in the O'Flaherty spy game.
< YAWN >
Ah well ... back to The Great Gildersleve on Wisconsin Public Radio.
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Pretentious!
As found at dictionary.com:
pre·ten·tious
–adjective
1. full of pretense or pretension.
2. characterized by assumption of dignity or importance.
3. making an exaggerated outward show; ostentatious.
This comic certainly seems to be "characterized by assumption of dignity and importance" and makes "an exaggerated outward show." So by this definition, it is pretentious.
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I saw a t-shirt the other day...
...that sums this up perfectly. It said: "The fact that nobody understands you does not make you an artist." (And that goes double for the writer.)
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Casket?
What the hell is a Williamsburg-designed casket?
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@Pennywhistler
Williamsburg, Brooklyn is notorious for the ghastly number of pretentious, trust-fund artistes that took up residence there during the 90's. This strip is exactly the kind of thing they would put out. In fact, it's the kind of thing badly-run pre-'net-bust sites like Den would run as content.
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Hmmmn ....
1. full of pretense or pretension.
2. characterized by assumption of dignity or importance.
3. making an exaggerated outward show; ostentatious.
This comic certainly seems to be "characterized by assumption of dignity and importance" and makes "an exaggerated outward show." So by this definition, it is pretentious.
Nope. I don't buy it. I see no assumption of dignity.
I fer sher don't see no assumption of importance. THAT would be that penguin cartoon or Camille Paglia's comic strip.
By definition, a comic strip has to be "an outward show", or we'd be back to the blank page suggested above.
Nope. I don't by this drivel as reaching the level of "pretentious". Wouldn't it have to try to be something ..... anything ..... or try to be something? Or something?
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Hey
Pennywhistler, you are to this letter thread what KOF is to Salon. Piss off, will ya.
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Whistling Dixie
Pennywhistler,
If you can't see that this comic strip possesses an exaggerated air of importance, then your sensibilities are dulled and suspect.
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Some more recommendations
Thinking this is something "intricate" which will make sense when linked together is a delusion. It's a crappy webcomic with arrogant overuse of cut and paste and no plot beyond a set of running not quite gags and almost puns.
For an actual real adventure strip with characters, plot and satire, try Shooting War. http://shootingwar.com/ The comic is now out in expanded book form, but the original still holds up. Reading this, you get why Salon's anti-comic is an almost criminal waste of resources. Honestly, of all the possible things Toni and Tom could produce, nothing shows their contempt and privelege more than the crap they put up weekly.
I mean seriously - T&T? You two have to be at least partially aware of the reaction. What in the hell is your excuse for doing this? Low pay and minimal effort can't explain it - I've seen much better stuff done off the cuff. Do you not realize it demeans all of us?
Here's the address to the site I mentioned before, "Your Webcomic Is Bad And You Should Feel Bad": http://badwebcomics.blogspot.com/ Sometimes it was more purile than funny, but for sheer fury it was great - alas, it's on hiatus or this crap could be eviscerated.
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Some jerk, never mind
Actually, "The Great Gildersleve" was the single worst program in the history of the "Golden Age" of Radio. And the Thanksgiving show on WPR was one of the worst ever Gildersleves.
While I was bored I went back to re-read the previous two editions of KO ... SA. And I noticed something odd -- the font is different for each one. Each barely readable, but each in a different way. This may portend future spy shenanigans.
I also wandered through some of the old letters and came across two that seem to have nailed it:
Even if this was intentionally bad, it was a poor attempt to be intentionally bad. If a half-decent cartoonist worked really, really hard to make something lame, it probably wouldn't be this lame.
Nip it in the bud.
-- theGman
You know what the real problem is? This is one page of a several page story and it doesn't work cut down like this because the single page doesn't go anywhere. I'm interested, but I'd be more interested in reading the whole thing than little confusing chunks like this.
-- Nimrod Gently
I myself will wait until the only interesting character -- the German Shepherd -- takes over the story. Till then ..... see ya in the funny papers!