Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Conservative Comic Lame-Off
There are currently three daily comic strips whose sole existence appears to be the representation of conservative worldview on the frozen tundra of newspaper comics pages. I'm sure the creator of each strip labors under the fallacy that his is a worthy competitor to Doonesbury. Needless to say, all three strips are, in their own way, consistently lame. As an ongoing experiment at Spitting Caves, we will compare each day's offering and award a daily prize for overall lameness. So let's meet the contestants.
Mallard Fillmore: The granddaddy of the crew. In art and joke rhythms, kind of resembles B.C. with a more overt right-wing agenda. Main character is a grumpy anthropomorphic duck journalist who hates liberals. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/mallard.asp?date=20050913
State of the Union: Carl Moore's strip features no characters of its own. Mostly an array of labored caricatures of celebrities and politicians. http://www.comics.com/creators/union/archive/union-20050913.html
Day By Day: The young upstart. As of now, distributed solely on the Web. In terms of both art and writing, this is easily the most modern and accomplished of the three, but Chris Muir is also the one most plugged into Republican talking points, which he often regurgitates. The major characters work in an anonymous office where nobody seems to do anything (a comic strip tradition) and everybody often seems dressed for a formal awards ceremony or something. An odd quirk: Muir's female characters have a tendency to wear clothes a few sizes to small, all the better for Muir to render their big butts.
So let's get started with today's offering. May the lamest strip win!
Mallard's having one of those weeks. All he wants is his food at the diner but his waitress is a grumpy graduate student. Today's punchline is either astoundingly lame or ingeniously minimal.
At State of the Union, we find two Native Americans with big heads griping about how the Interior Department won't let them open a casino at Yellowstone. The punchline is presented as though it's supposed to knock you out of your seat. Bonus lame points for Moore's use of the term "Indian ways."
Finally, over at Day By Day, it's another day at the office.
The half-naked liberal white woman has been arguing with the suave black conservative all week, first about the hurricane, and now they've apparently switched gears to talk about Iraq. Let me first point out that there is an actual joke in the punchline, one that involves a semi-skilled sense of worldplay. Muir tries this kind of thing a lot and usually fails. Nonetheless, while more sophisticated than his fellow contestants, today's Muir strip is a perfect illustration of his lame tendency to regurgitate Republican babble--in this case, the notion that Iraq correspondents at the, you know, "MSM" are lazy cowards who stay in their safe air-conditioned hotels all day, while intrepid conservative bloggers are writing history's real first drafts. This viewpoint is, of course, so obviously lame given the fact that more journalists have died covering this war so far than during the entire Vietnam War. If Chris Muir were to go to Iraq and actually spend some time outside his hotel, we might reconsider our judgement, but for now--congratulations, Chris! You've won the first Conservative Comic Lame-Off!
Mallard Fillmore: The granddaddy of the crew. In art and joke rhythms, kind of resembles B.C. with a more overt right-wing agenda. Main character is a grumpy anthropomorphic duck journalist who hates liberals. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/mallard.asp?date=20050913
State of the Union: Carl Moore's strip features no characters of its own. Mostly an array of labored caricatures of celebrities and politicians. http://www.comics.com/creators/union/archive/union-20050913.html
Day By Day: The young upstart. As of now, distributed solely on the Web. In terms of both art and writing, this is easily the most modern and accomplished of the three, but Chris Muir is also the one most plugged into Republican talking points, which he often regurgitates. The major characters work in an anonymous office where nobody seems to do anything (a comic strip tradition) and everybody often seems dressed for a formal awards ceremony or something. An odd quirk: Muir's female characters have a tendency to wear clothes a few sizes to small, all the better for Muir to render their big butts.
So let's get started with today's offering. May the lamest strip win!
Mallard's having one of those weeks. All he wants is his food at the diner but his waitress is a grumpy graduate student. Today's punchline is either astoundingly lame or ingeniously minimal.
At State of the Union, we find two Native Americans with big heads griping about how the Interior Department won't let them open a casino at Yellowstone. The punchline is presented as though it's supposed to knock you out of your seat. Bonus lame points for Moore's use of the term "Indian ways."
Finally, over at Day By Day, it's another day at the office.
The half-naked liberal white woman has been arguing with the suave black conservative all week, first about the hurricane, and now they've apparently switched gears to talk about Iraq. Let me first point out that there is an actual joke in the punchline, one that involves a semi-skilled sense of worldplay. Muir tries this kind of thing a lot and usually fails. Nonetheless, while more sophisticated than his fellow contestants, today's Muir strip is a perfect illustration of his lame tendency to regurgitate Republican babble--in this case, the notion that Iraq correspondents at the, you know, "MSM" are lazy cowards who stay in their safe air-conditioned hotels all day, while intrepid conservative bloggers are writing history's real first drafts. This viewpoint is, of course, so obviously lame given the fact that more journalists have died covering this war so far than during the entire Vietnam War. If Chris Muir were to go to Iraq and actually spend some time outside his hotel, we might reconsider our judgement, but for now--congratulations, Chris! You've won the first Conservative Comic Lame-Off!
