CSotD: The Compleat Prat and How to Be One
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Arlo and Janis comes the closest to my feelings about tonight's Super Bowl, and, if you're not a sports fan, stick with me here anyway.
Like Janis, I don't have a dog in the fight, but, like Arlo, I see it as a fun way to end the season at a time when I have nothing better to do, though A&E is running a "Storage Wars" marathon opposite the game for those too intellectual to watch sports.
I'm going to watch the game, and I'm hoping for good commercials. Saw a guy post that he hates the Super Bowl because the next day, everyone at work talks about the commercials.
And that he works at an ad agency.
Which makes me wonder how long he has, how long he's gonna and why on earth he does.
Though the only good thing about the halftime show is that it's a chance to go to the bathroom and to replenish the food. But then I don't distinguish among Super Bowl halftime shows, America's Got Talent, the Grammy Awards and the Muzak at my local Price Chopper.
"I noticed you weeping while I was singing 'My Old Kentucky Home.' You must be from Kentucky!"
"No, I'm a musician."
In any case …
Francesco Marciuliano reposted this Medium Large piece on Facebook, and I think it's a good way to deflate (sorry, Tom) the self-importance of the game without revealing yourself to be a total prat.
It's perfectly all right to not be a football fan, particularly in light of the issue of brain damage. I know once-rabid fans who have given up on the sport, though I'd like to see more and better research on the topic.
And you don't have to like things you don't like, but being loudly proud of not liking something simply because it's popular is a sham most of us outgrow by about 10th grade.
The part about "revealing yourself to be a total prat" comes when you put up a post in which you deliberately misuse sports terms to cleverly demonstrate your superior ignorance.
It's like the joke about the guy who goes to a ballet and asks why they don't just hire taller girls, except that the intent of that joke is to show how a truly stupid person would respond.
And, anyway, to quote my favorite Oscar Wilde line, 'Never speak disrespectfully of society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that."
However
Mike Lynch has been sharing some of what Dick Buchanan collected under the title of "gag cartoon clichés," including (as seen above) "Ordering in a Restaurant" and "Husbands Reading at the Breakfast Table," as well as desert islands, doctor's offices, psychiatrist's couches, patent offices, women drivers and so on.
And having just plowed my way through today's selection of Super Bowl cartoon clichés, it comes at a good time.
However, I'm going to quibble with the word "cliché" on the grounds that, in the hands of a creative artist, these things are not "clichés" but traditions.
It doesn't become a "cliché" until it has been hacked out to meet a deadline. Or because the cartoonist isn't funny.
I saw a few Super Bowl cartoons today that made me at least smile or chuckle if not actually laff. And a few that did make me laff.
But I also saw a lot about eating during the game. Arlo references the feast, but it's only tangentially the point of the cartoon. When gluttony is the entire punchline, the gag becomes a cliché.
The issue — particularly for one-panel cartoons but also for strips — is that you don't have a huge amount of space or time to set up some unique setting.
A desert (not "sandy" but "deserted") island in the real world could be quite large and filled with trees and wildlife. But you can't fit that into a cartoon without explaining that there isn't a village just a mile down the beach.
So you draw a tiny mound with a single palm tree, despite the fact that, with no fresh water and only two coconuts on that tree, you wouldn't live long enough to grow that thick beard.
It's simply a matter of establishing your setting and the reader's expectations and then adding the creative twist — which, if you ain't got a creative twist, is where that traditional setting turns into a cliché.
When a cartoonist draws a desert island, or two people in a restaurant, or, for that matter, a Groundhog Day or Super Bowl cartoon, it's setting up a dare, it's like walking out on the high wire.
Just walking across isn't enough.
We want to see you stand on your head and play the accordion out there.
Like Sam Gross.
Or Charles Addams
Or Charles Rodrigues
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our settings, but in ourselves, that we are phoning it in.”
Meanwhile, another paper shoots itself in the foot
After 21 years of solid cartooning, Cullum Rogers finds himself booted out by the "Indy Week" in North Carolina.
"Indy Week" seems to fancy itself an "alternative" publication. Maybe I'm just an old guy, but I remember when "alternative" newspapers were an alternative to commercial publications, not an alternative to serious journalism.
Talk about covering the important stories the straight press won't touch: Where do our beloved local celebrities go for the perfect date? And where can you escape with a new Tinder match when you know everyone in town?
I remember when only the Berkeley Barb was willing to touch such controversial topics!
And when John Peter Zenger got hauled up before the courts for his views on his favorite go-to bars.
And here's mine, for the front office: Localism is the antidote to Internet competition, you clueless prats.
And a question for the staff: Is this trend-chasing hipster bullshit really why you majored in journalism?
I mean, wit all doo respeck, what's got into you?
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