CSotD: Timing, Immediate & Long-Term
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As they say, timing is everything. They usually say it about comedy, but it’s obviously a factor in political cartooning and here’s a pair of cartoons that had everything except good timing, and, in the case of Megan Herbert’s piece, it’s a very rare case in which the time difference between Australia and the United States worked against her.
Trump’s lawyers, having served up a totally inadequate defense of his ban of three networks from the White House, asked the judge to ponder things until late Friday afternoon, which got a laugh from me because Friday quitting time is when you release bad news in hopes it will get lost over the weekend. The request was as hapless as their case, which was a dead duck from the start, its substance having been sorted out in the past.
From a cartooning standpoint, however, burying it in the Friday afternoon deadzone would have been good for Zyglis and Herbert, because it would have allowed their work to shine. As it was, however, Judge Kelly could have ruled from the bench but gave it a few hours before restoring the media’s access shortly after midnight this morning.
It was a shame for Zyglis because while I think Austin Powers gags are tired, there are times even a tired gag gets new life, and depicting Trump as a Putin Mini-Me is, particularly in this case, wonderfully apt. And both cartoons provide good analysis of Trump, but were deflated by Judge Kelly’s preliminary but obvious decision.
I don’t know if either made print, by the way, but they hit online in-boxes this morning and that’s getting to be the larger venue, if not the most lucrative.
Speaking of breathing fresh air into a tired gag, I have a particular dislike for “Look behind you!” cartoons. I drew one when I was 13, of an explorer in a jungle with a fat-bellied T Rex behind him, saying “Don’t mumble, Johnson.” Every time I see yet another version of that gag, I think how funny it seemed in 1963 and how not-funny every variant since has become.
I’m also tired of a much younger lame gag which is people staring at their phones and ignoring the world around them, which would make this a double-loser, but somehow his piling Pelion upon Ossa has the opposite effect here.
I think that the difference — and it’s critical — is that she’s not just absent-minded but self-absorbed, given that she’s writing the words rather than reading them, and while Weyant doesn’t specifically say so, I think she knows the fellow who is drowning, given the empty towel at her side.
Different kind of timing: This ran this morning and, as it happens, I saw my first yellow leaves yesterday, so this is extraordinary timing for me, though a little late for those farther north and too early for those to my south.
It is not healthy to believe the cartoonists are writing specifically for you, but it’s fun when it seems to happen. If you’d like, you can file the cartoon away and look at it when it becomes ripe.
Juxtaposition of the Day, Technical Division
I didn’t even know No. 1 pencils still existed, but indeed they do, and many more besides.
So for the artists amongst us, here is a whole lot of information about different grades of pencils. It even has an FAQ, which I found funny because I don’t F ask any Q’s, but perhaps you do.
A More Serious Timing Issue
Stacy Curtis raised a significant flag yesterday, with a Facebook entry upon having watched the 2018 movie, The Folks Behind The Funnies.
His reaction was (in part):
This video takes on a whole new meaning when you think how many of these comic strips are in reruns which prevent new, fresh comic strips from appearing on the comics pages. Cartoonists who claim to love the comic strip profession are the same ones who destroyed it.
This video seems to be at least two decades old. Almost every comic strip in this video is being rerun in newspapers today or the comic strip has been handed off to a new creator.
He’s right that it was filmed well before it was released; he’s also on target about the issue of reruns and zombie strips. My local paper runs a dozen strips, three of which are reruns, eight of which are zombies and only one of which is drawn by its original creator.
Part of the problem is editorial indifference. Most editors don’t understand cartoons to begin with, being literalists largely immune to metaphor. And they don’t have to deal with cartoons. Comics flow directly into the backshop, are placed on a pre-formatted page and aren’t seen by the newsroom unless someone sneaks in a PG-13 gag and phones start ringing the next morning with complaints. (Nobody ever calls to say they laughed.)
And when newspapers have “reader surveys,” they aren’t statistically balanced and most people who answer are retirees with time for such things and who like the familiarity of old favorites doing the same things they’ve done for the past half-century.
I say this as someone who redid the comics page for a paper, swapped out seven of its 21 comics, designed a custom Sunday package and had maybe half a dozen complaints. It can be done, but won’t be, because that’s how the business works at that end of the transaction.
I have another solution that won’t happen: Why not offer cartoonists no more than four five-year contracts? I base this on my observation that British TV comedies produce a few good seasons and then stop. Think of how few classics went on terribly long. To The Manor Born was only three seasons, and no more than eight episodes per season. Monty Python did four seasons, as did Blackadder.
Similarly, Calvin and Hobbes ran a decade, the Far Side for 15 years, and each ended about when it should, then made room on the page for fresh, new material.
Oh no, I’ve said too much. I haven’t said enough. But a newspaper that carries 12 strips should offer more than one that’s done by its original creator.
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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