CSotD: Take this comic strip … please
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On Tuesday, Gannett laid off 700 people at their papers around the country, in an attempt to save money and maximize short-term profits. Although this sort of short-staffing handcuffs local papers and makes it virtually impossible for them to matter to the people in their own communities, it does have other benefits. In this case, for instance, keeping the payroll trimmed has allowed the company to double the pay of CEO Craig Dubow to $9.4 million and give him a cash bonus of $1.75 million. COO Gracia Martore was similarly rewarded, though on a lesser scale — she's only making $8.2 million a year and her bonus was a piddling $1.25 million.
So, despite having been out of that rat race for about two years, I still got a laugh at today's Lockhorns, remembering when I used to put in 60 and 70 hour weeks for what, at its height, would have been less than twice the minimum wage, if you converted it from salary to wages.
I was irreplaceable, too, Leroy. You can't have too many talented morons in an organization.
I've mentioned Bunny Hoest of "the Lockhorns" several times here, and today's panel is a good opportunity to take a closer look at a surprising cartoon.
I say "surprising" because there's nothing cutting edge about this 43-year-old comic.
It's done in Big Foot style, a style named for the way characters are drawn, though the Lockhorns themselves are actually more big nose than big foot. It's a style associated with cocktail napkin gags from the 1950s, the sorts of gags you see in cheesy souvenir shops or on Christmas cards showing Santa water skiing.
And the jokes tend to be equally traditional and predictable: Dented fenders, overdrawn checkbooks, budgets that won't budge, husbands who get out of hand at parties.
And yet.
Back in 2003, when I was given the opportunity to re-do the comics page of the Post-Star (Glens Falls, NY), I began with a readers' poll in which we divided our strips into three categories and, within each of those groups, asked readers which single strip they most wanted us to drop and which single strip they most wanted us to keep.
I expected younger readers to nominate the Lockhorns as a tired old strip to drop, and for it to rarely if ever show up as a favorite, even among the Old Folks who tend to dominate feedback on these things. After all, that category included old favorites like Beetle Bailey and Blondie, and I figured those who like that sort of thing would be eager to preserve those stalwarts of the form.
And yet, not only did people not recommend the Lockhorns for cancellation, but it showed up in large numbers, in all demographics, as their favorite strip in that category.
Which is why I had asked the question, and which forced me to take a fresh look at the strip, which, of course, we kept.
After we had made our cuts and additions, I interviewed all the creators, and my interview with Bunny Hoest, aside from being one of the two or three most laugh-filled conversations among those 20-some phone calls, revealed a great deal more conscious craft than I had expected.
You can read more by following that link, but, basically, the Lockhorns relies on a very small cast, a very small number of minimalist settings and a delicate balance of domestic battling and marital solidarity. It's a formula seen in "The Honeymooners" and similar comedies throughout the ages, but, while that could make it "tired," it can also mean that it is "tried and true."
Bunny's husband, Bill Hoest, had been a successful gag cartoonist and brought a lot of experience to the strip, which launched in 1968. But she was a partner in crafting the humor and, by the time he died in 1988, artist John Reiner, having been recommended by comics legend Mort Drucker, had been training to take over so the feature could, and did, continue unabated.
And Reiner employs a solid line and some comic insight to bring snap to what could be a drab, repetitive style. Despite a conscious lack of variation in characters and setting — purposely kept that way to set things up quickly and focus attention on the single punchline — Reiner manages to express moods and reactions with variety and even nuance. And, as Bunny noted in the interview, he draws sexy girls for Leroy to flirt with who are not just pretty but look like they'd be fun!
Sometimes I worry that thinking too much about the form, and having some contact with the artists, will make it impossible for me to see comic strips as the reader sees them. In the case of the Lockhorns, however, it's had the opposite effect: Finding out how popular the feature is with readers of all ages, and then learning how much conscious craft goes into creating it, forced me to get off my high horse and look at it with a less jaundiced eye.
Are the jokes pretty much the same each day? Yeah. But how much variation was there in a Henny Youngman routine? How much did Rodney Dangerfield depart from his usual schtick? When did Jackie Vernon plow any new ground in his work?
In an art form in which "cutting edge" too often translates to "wise-ass misanthropic talking animal," there is still plenty of room for tried-and-true comedy done well.
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