CSotD: Everything Old is New Again
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In the sad-but-not-sad category, Alan Gardner has put his blog, The Daily Cartoonist, on hiatus after 10 years.
It's sad because those of us who love comics have come to count on the place as both a quick shot of insider info, often the first place but certainly the quickest for news of both mainstream and off-mainstream cartooning news, and as a place where professional cartoonists and fans could exchange comments. Mike Cavna's blog at the Washington Post is less informal, Tom Spurgeon's Comics Reporter is more comic book oriented and only touches on strips occasionally.
And it's not sad because he's putting his time into some pretty cool stuff and it's hard to argue with his priorities.
The move isn't unexpected at this point: He hadn't updated since February and I'm only one of several people who had messaged him to make sure he was okay, which, as that link will tell you, he is.
But he had a unique little shop and I'm going to miss it.
A different sort of departure
Scott Stantis has shown an increasing combination of impatience and despair with the political process over the course of the past few months at Prickly City, and now Carmen and Winslow are heading out to seek another topic. At least, I hope that's all they're heading out for.
This is an unsurprising development, given that Scott is a decent guy and politics have descended below the level where you can have a lot of innocent fun mocking it, and so, while I'm sad to see a decent voice depart the arena, I'm not sad because I don't know the next step either.
But let's face it, Steve Sack's cartoon on the ongoing ignorant hatefest pretty much sums it up, and, if it didn't, the way the masks have come off the racist hatred of the President and his family surely demonstrate the State of the Union.
We've managed to combine bigotry, intolerance and ignorant hate into an acceptable "opinion" and it isn't just Trump, who is only capitalizing on a vulgarity that has been put into place by our own tolerance of garbage on TV and in the movies.
Nor are the people on the left blameless in this descent into the gutter. I don't particularly like Glenn McCoy's utterly groundless tying in of Clinton to the stupid, pointless riots in California.
But they offered him the wedge, and if Trump has a chance, it will be because idiots have whipped up a fear of mobs and rioting that matches the fear of pree-verts in our bathrooms.
And, if you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
An unexpected rebirth
However, all is not gloom: Edge City, which shut down a few months ago, has suddenly reappeared in reruns, leaping from King Features to GoComics, where it is being announced with a profound lack of noting that it's only new to the site and not to the world.
It's a surprise, but a pleasant one. I was not following the strip in 2001, when this piece first appeared, and I won't mind getting a look at what I missed.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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