Letters to the Editor
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Nope
Still crap.
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week after week...
...it seems like Schlesinger and Bachtell get the biggest joy imaginable from creating a purposely bad comic that only they and three of their friends in TriBeCa get. In fact, I'm sure of it. A new definition is needed for this kind of teeth-aching, hipper-than-thou, faux PoMo pretentiousness. Takers?
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seriously, tho...
Could salon just provide a link to the letters, bypassing the "comic" itself?
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They're still publishing this thing?
At this point, it must be mortifying for the authors. Break the contract and risk the lawsuit, I say.
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Pardon me,
while I go back to chewing on tinfoil, running my fingernails across a blackboard, and listening tapes of crying children on airplanes.
That would be so much more fun.
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@Alex Tucker
I think you're being unfair to their friends in TriBeCa. In fact, I'm starting to wonder whether the authors get it, either.
Salon, you can pay me what you're paying Schlesinger and Bachtell, and I'll provide you with a blank piece of paper every week that will garner better reviews than this comic. It's win-win. Have your people call my people.
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Ok, I give up...
...is this supposed to suck?
Are no copyeditors available? Do you just like run-on sentences, or do you not know how to punctuate? (Even cartoons follow some conventions.) Is Photoshop cut-n-paste the accepted way to "draw" cartoons today?
I admit I'll keep reading it, but I'm beginning to mystify even myself when I wonder WHY. (Sob, sigh.)
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I skipped straight to the letters section...
don't really need to read the comic anyway, eating paper towels is much more fun.
(I'm out of aluminum foil)
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By the way...
I was just wondering, is there a singing-telegram-like service that will deliver flaming bags of dog poop in the New York City area?
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Is the joke on your readers?
Because the authors are not even trying to be ironic or hip or too cool for school anymore.
And what's with the spelling and grammar? "cry baby"?
You know, this is just not funny anymore. Sure, intentionally pissing off your subscribers was kind of cool for a while, but enough is enough. We get it. You publish purposely annoying crap to see how many negative letters you can get. Ha ha ha.
But as a long-time reader, I am tired of being the butt of this joke. I pay to read this site, and I expect the editors to make sure that what is here is worth reading. If you expect me to screen the crap out myself, then I can easily search the web for free by myself.
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hmmm...
I admit that I did read this week's installment, even if I did read the more entertaining letters first.
After six or seven weeks, I still feel absolutely no emotional involvement in this strip, no empathy with Kansas, and certainly no animus towards any other character. They, like me looking at them, are emotional blanks.
That seems to be the problem. Every other cartoon strip I read, or feel like reading, offers some sort of emotional in to the characters. Sometimes they are obvious, like Tom Tomorrow's snarky penguin, or Keith Knight's every-man, but usually it's just the fleeting glimpses of myself that spark my interest in what's going on. Even the occasionally banal cartoon penned by Carol Lay engenders some emotional connection, even if it's looking forward to something different next week.
Unfortunately Kansas O'Flaherty offers nothing of the sort. The strip is a sterile, frozen wasteland where no emotion can attach itself. Moreover, week after week, it's the same carbon copy of the tedium that was last weeks strip. Snooze!
Kansas O'Flaherty--hate her? Nahh, I close my eyes and she's gone.
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some caritas if you please.
They are learning.
This week something actually happened in the strip.
Ok, it did not make sense, and apparently they think a small woman can knock out a baddie with an open handed slap, but still, something happened.
And I am sure next week there will be another improvement, though I wont venture to guess which of the many possible ones they will chose.
One small step at a time.
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Last week...
I predicted that KOF would KO her foe, who was unidentified, or a UFOe. Of course, I had her do this after a bit of soul searching, during which she would vow to stop being such a pointless soulless puppet. After KO'ing her UFO, she then went after the king. I even predicted the "Crispy" joke from this week's episode.
What does it all mean??? I Don't Know!
I just have no idea what they are after, here. No idea at all.
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No. No more.
@JakobA: Why not try something new and use a house account for the shilling so you look like an actual paying customer? And the fact that the Big News is that SOMETHING (however implausible and hackneyed) actually HAPPENED this week -- that's all we need to know, isn't it?
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My premium subscription is up in a couple of weeks. Slate or Harper's would be happy to replace Salon on my third Firefox tab, and for the cash I can even get the dead-tree edition of the latter.
Ah well, I'll miss King Kaufman and Carol Lay. Maybe I'll occasionally click through the blank white boxes (all Adblock Plus leaves me of the ads) to look at them.
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A caution from the Cartoonist Guild
Usually not wise to dis cartoonists. But since they probably have no idea what any of you look like, maybe you're safe for now.
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What kind of world is it where we worry about angering cartoonists?
Seriously, when has that every worked out poorly for anyone?
"The Mossad made up this country." I'm not sure if the strip even had internal logic up to this point, but that's definitely a break. Other people's fever dreams are pretty uncompelling, and that's what this is reading like.
I guess I can just not go to Salon comics on Tuesdays, but I hate having to change my routine on a given day of the week. On the other hand, Salon only had four daily strips (three if you don't count WayLay) when I subscribed, so it's not like I'm losing money, and Opus is a bonus.
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Alternatives
As I've previously stated, I won't waste good invective on this. What I'll do instead is what I saw another reader do: point you to vastly superior content.
PLEASE VISIT http://www.transmission-x.com
My favorites:
Kukuburi
Princess Planet
The Abominable Charles Christopher
If the idea is to have a fantasy serial that isn't just adolescent male escapist action, something suitable for 'sophisticated adults', there are options at this site.