CSotD: Fantasy or Reality?
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One of the strengths of Pros and Cons is that, by combining a cop, a lawyer, a psychologist and a cafe owner, Kieran Meehan offers himself a cast with the diversity to make a lot of gags work well.
Because it's such a small cast — the four majors and a very small number of recurring extras — there's not a lot of re-establishment necessary. You recognize the character immediately and so a well-placed gag can begin nearly in mid-stride.
That's not a small thing. I've given up on a few strips because the characters weren't sufficiently differentiated, and I've even given up on one or two where I couldn't tell the characters apart. But the other factor is that, while you want the characters to be simple, you don't want them to be cardboard stereotypes.
In many of Meehan's gags, the established characters themselves do nothing and the gag is in their response to the people they deal with, and it's often not much of a response at all. I often cite Bob Newhart, in (the real) Bob Newhart Show, as not only a master of the blank response but of the obvious set-up, and there's a lot of that dry humor in Pros and Cons, particularly in the psychologist segments.
Today's gag doesn't break new ground, but the psychologist setting allows people to say directly what they would have to hedge around otherwise, and the guy lays out a universal that not only cracked me up but made me pause.
Yes, guys like pretty girls and are predisposed to "fall in love" with beautiful women, and, unfortunately, if that's the basis, well, romance can fade with time.
But this does not emerge from a vacuum, and the equation of beauty and loveableness seems hardwired, even when we — all of us, not just unreconstructed chauvinists – know intellectually that it's unfair.
There was an essay going around a few months ago, in which a mother asked people not to tell her daughter she was pretty, not to compliment her clothes, not to focus on how nice she looked, but rather to talk to her about her interests and compliment her activities.
And it got a lot of "likes" and then it disappeared.
And we went back to saying "Today is my beautiful daughter's birthday!"
(Social hint: Don't ask him when his other daughter was born.)
Meanwhile, over at Knight Life, Keef has been visiting the zoo where, apparently, costumed characters are a "thing."
Zoos are a little out of my immediate experience, since my kids are grown and I live semi-country. My local grandkids don't go to the zoo very often but they do have to take in their birdfeeders in the spring to keep the zoo from coming to them, since sunflower seeds are attractive to bears when they first wake up from winter.
On the other hand, my youngest granddaughter is in San Diego, so once she's old enough to look around a little, she'll have a chance to see both a good zoo and an even better wild animal park, and that's worthwhile, because, as little as zoos replicate wild life, they do have an educational mission to keep the public engaged, as well as a mission of assisting in preservation of wild species.
Not sure where unicorns fall into the mission, however. I was already a little uncertain about the animal "shows" in which raptors and others perform in little amphitheaters.
I'm more into things like the Denver Zoo's explanation of how they alternate letting the African dogs and hyenas use a common outdoor space, because it's good for the animals to smell that the "other" has been there, though you certainly wouldn't want them to come face to face, or the way they feed the anteaters by hiding their food around the exhibit to give them some mental stimulation.
As for unicorns … sigh, shudder … I knew a guy who knew the guy who created the "unicorn" Ringling Brothers was exhibiting a generation ago. He did it by cutting a horn bud from a goat and implanting it in the middle of the animal's forehead.
And you thought making elephants stand on their heads was uncool.
Political beat
I'm discouraged enough about politics, and appalled enough by the level of disinformation and laziness, that most political cartoons are leaving me a little flat these days, but this Nick Anderson piece made me laugh.
Political cartoons are not required to be funny, and they lose points if they trim too much fact to make the joke fit, but the consternation among party faithful has become its own bizarre joke, and, while I remain sick of "poor pitiful elephant" gags, the struggles of party leaders to avoid being seen as party leaders is, indeed, fair game for jokes.
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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