Letters to the Editor
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JM Walker
So you think an artist shouldn't care about how a very large portion (quite possibly the largest portion) of readership on any given day reacts to his or her work? Here's a news flash: Most people are too busy living to make a life's work out of following a given artist and making sure they know just how every little intended nuance might be inflected by previous context. A great deal of artwork is consumed by people who have only passing familiarity with the artist. If you're going to write them off, then you're writing off most people around you. And if you don't care how they respond, especially when a work of art has substantive sociopolitical ramifications, then you are an irreponsible artist indeed. Just because someone's longstanding houvre might inflect a piece a certain way doesn't mean that in fact that piece is going to be processed that way by most readers. In fact, the cultural work it does may be quite the opposite.
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One Guy
So you think an artist shouldn't care about how a very large portion (quite possibly the largest portion) of readership on any given day reacts to his or her work? Here's a news flash: Most people are too busy living to make a life's work out of following a given artist and making sure they know just how every little intended nuance might be inflected by previous context. A great deal of artwork is consumed by people who have only passing familiarity with the artist. If you're going to write them off, then you're writing off most people around you. And if you don't care how they respond, especially when a work of art has substantive sociopolitical ramifications, then you are an irreponsible artist indeed. Just because someone's longstanding houvre might inflect a piece a certain way doesn't mean that in fact that piece is going to be processed that way by most readers. In fact, the cultural work it does may be quite the opposite.
Ridiculous. It's a comic strip. I read the entire comics page in less time than it takes to smoke my morning cigarette. Opus doesn't require hours of study and a masters degree in comparative literature to interpret.
You're a stay-at-home dad, right? Kudos. I humbly suggest you not take your Sunday comics so personally. Exercise your Constitutional right not to read things that might offend you. (I'm sure it's in there somewhere. :)
P.S. Correction to an earlier post: Oliver Wendell Jones
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???
Half of Broadsheet's content is feminist screed against inappropriate portrayal of women in the media. Why is it so hard to expect feminists to live by the same standard they wish others would apply to them?
This type of hypocrisy is all too common in American feminism.
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JM
If you think comic strips don't reflect and affect people's thinking, you are way off. Otherwise, why have feminists (rightly) complained about misogynist jokes and comics for years? They knew something you apparently don't. It's all part of the culture. War and Peace, Calvin and Hobbes, Roots, Bugs Bunny. It's all part of who we are.
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Speaking of stereotypes...
Can we please, please get over the worn-out idea that all men have their tongues hanging out for sex with two lesbians. Sheesh! Can't imagine anything much worse...
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Steve Dallas has a son?!?
I stopped reading when Bloom County closed down, and only read a few Outlands. Is this old news? My initial reaction to this strip was wondering who the new kid was. I didn't recognize Steve Dallas until someone in the letters pointed it out. But clearly the kid is his son (since they have the same hairstyle, which is comics code for being in the same nuclear family, see Arlo & Janis). So, am I way behind the ball here? When did Steve have a kid???
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Father As Klutz; What Else Is New?
I love Breathed and his retinue of cartoon misfits; his brand of humor is incredibly on-target...skewering all aspects of American life gleefully and with abandon. The use of Steve Dallas as misogynist-cum-protagonist is profound and works masterfully in the above cartoon in relation to today's current advertising mainstream: dad as idiot!
Spend an average day in front of the tube and you'll discover that "Dad as idiot" is the contemporary currency of most advertising. The Dad of the 1950's "Father Knows Best", "Donna Reed Show", et al, no longer exists; in his place is a lovable doofus who is terminally befuddled, addled or simply clueless. Mom saves the day and the kids join her in making fun of poor, hapless Dad. The poor guy can hardly keep from drooling on himself or soiling his Calvins.
While I agree that Breathed is humourous, his depiction of Steve Dallas is hardly ground-breaking and is certainly nothing new. Madison Avenue discovered long ago that Dads can be made fun of because it's Mom who controls the spending in the household. Dads only count...sort of...when it comes to buying for Valentine's Day; more often than not, though, Dad must be lead, pack-mule-like, by the nose by Mom because he's too stupid to purchase anything more than a six-pack with a red bow for her.
It must be true; television shows it daily. You'll excuse me now; I must do something stupid in front of my teenage sons to cement my role as dolt.
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OPUS!
Thank you for bringing us Opus! Breathed is basically a national hero, as far as I am concerned, and now, with Breathed, Bolling, and Tomorrow (no offense to Lay or K), you have the top three cartoonists in the nation in my book. Now if you could get Griffith and Groening, my internet world would be complete!
Thanks Salon!
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Lay out
Doesn't anybody want to discuss the horizontal layout on a vertical computer screen?
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RE: Doesn't anybody want to discuss the horizontal layout on a vertical computer screen?
Sure I will.
1. The comic is in the same format that it has been published in for years. Considering Breathed’s past resistance to publishing his strip to the web I doubt he cares if you have to scroll left to right as opposed to up and down.
2. I don’t have to scroll to see the strip. It fits completely on my screen. Most people use a higher resolution than 800 x 600