You're absolutely right. The author of Mallard Fillmore:

1) Understands the basics of comic strip construction.

2) Creates his comic strip with the intent of pleasing his audience.

3) Has more than three fans, all of whom live in Tribeca and personally know the author.

You could also say that he steals from his source material more successfully (a green-feathered duck named Mallard Fillmore first appeared as the President on an alternate Earth in DC Comics more than ten years before the current political Mallard made his debut).

But I guess, in the end, it's like comparing a briar patch to a thorn bush.

I've avoided the comic itself for the last two installments, only reading the letters, but curiosity got the best of me and I just caught up.

My God, what a crapfest!

Y'all are right, it's still worthless. I realize I'm not adding anything new to the discussion, but I felt like I should post a critical note to make up for clicking on the abomination.

There is one good thing I can say about KO'F: it's not "Mallard Fillmore".

who is this comic intended for

it's less entertaining than Adam@Home

Those things are pretty awful, too, and make about as much sense. Maybe next week (or worse, in a few weeks) KoF will say, "Quote. Buy. Print!"

What's really pathetic is that the editors had to select a "well, there was a small improvement" letter to balance out all of the anti-KoF letters. The balance here is like Evolution vs. ID - 95/100 letters say it sucks, but the Editor's Choice category shows it as an even debate.

This week's art is even worse than the first week's art -- and that's saying something.

Why did it look like Bachtell actually cared about this strip last week and not this week? Is it because, with the strip's Christmas hiatus, he had an extra week to pay attention to the last one? And if he doesn't care about this on an ongoing basis, why should we?

No need to comment on the story or the writing, obviously.

...these are what _should_ be running instead of KOF:

Shooting War

http://shootingwar.com

Get Your War On by David Rees

http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/war69.html

Bad Reporter by Don Asmussen

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/11/14/DDASMUSSENBR.DTL

SinFest

http://www.sinfest.net

Cat and Girl

http://www.catandgirl.com/

Dinosaur Comics

http://www.qwantz.com/

Cyanide and Happiness

http://www.explosm.net/comics/761/

Megaton Man

ttp://www.worldfamouscomics.com/megatonman/

8-Bit Theater

http://www.nuklearpower.com/latest.php

Apartment 3-D

http://www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/apt3g/aboutMaina.php

Mary Worth

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/mary.asp?date=20071125

Migraine Boy

http://www.gregfiering.com/migraineboy/Book/009.html

XKCD

http://xkcd.com/

Freefall

http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1500/fc01499.htm

Gunerkrigg Court

http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=7

Pibgorn

http://www.gocomics.com/pibgorn/2007/11/07/?uc_full_date=&campid=0&

Order of the Stick

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0506.html

Goblins

http://www.goblinscomic.com/

Wow. From smug and senseless to straight-up stupid in eight episodes. The only suspense this is engendering is exactly how many installments of this crap has SALON commissioned--and is this one gonna be it (please _God_)? You Premium subscribers have my deepest sympathy--if any of my cash flow had gone to pay for this sorry-ass amateur hour, I'd be deeply pissed too...

Yume no ha ka

chiru sharakusashi

saigo no he

I'm not sure where it's going but I am enjoying the view so far.

Don't read it. There are several writers in Salon who I dislike intensely. I just don't click on their link. See how easy that was.

I appreciate my premium membership and will keep it up.

likes this strip, not ironically, in sympathy, or otherwise. One might expect that the large amount of negative criticism in the post would draw out one or two who are compelled to vocalize some degree of appreciation, but the closest anyone has come to doing that is pointing out minor improvements that should have occurred before the strip was ever o.k.'d to print. I'm beginning to believe that the editor of Salon lost a bet sometime in late September, and as a result had to print the most poorly executed strip that was solicited for publication. By the way, an explanation from the editor/s as to why this was strip was chosen to run would be most welcome.

Not good meta, but still meta.

I think it started with the tomato in the face- and ever since I think they are writing obliquely about their reception here at salon.

There's something vaguely self-pitying about the king... or maybe he's us, whining. The crispy joke comes straight from the letters, iirc...

Any way- I think they're working through the initial agreed-upon run (10 comics, maybe, or something) and, having already seen it to be a failure the authors are trying to salvage their experience by directly confronting it with the work. Thus, KoF goes meta.

Sadly, they aren't good enough at narrative comics to make this work much better than those early days when they were trying to execute their original plan (whatever that was.)

I don't know why I had to even go there.

A whole fake country? How does that even work? A whole fake country to stage coups in? Who needs a coup in a fake country? Aren't coups best staged in real countries with real governments that need deposing from somebody's point of view?

None of this makes any sense.

We don't know who the enemy is by Kansas' flippant reference. Kansas has been set up by "Schlomo", but again, what's the point? What IS the Crispy/Crispo file and why is she after it again? Why is Schlomo setting her up after using her for a booty call anyway?

Another Tuesday, another mess so stinking awful that I need a shower even though I'm already at work.

I'm just not going to volunteer for it any more. Salon, you're running a big ad campaign to get premium subscribers these days. I was thinking about it, but really, why should I? You've got way too many mediocre talents in your lineup. Ayelet whats-er-name with her mommy angst and Camille Paglia with her dated 90s diatribes are others I could list.

Seriously, you would be doing yourself some active financial good by killing off this strip for starters.