CSotD: It’s, arguably, the most wonderful time of the year
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Today's headline is a tribute to my favorite journalistic weasel-word.
However, it fits. The Christmas cartoons are starting, which will, for the next two weeks, mean the comics page will be an eclectic mix of good stuff and really lame stuff. We'll celebrate the good.
Some of which is political, of course. Steve Sack isn't the first to comment on the do-nothing gridlock Congress, but this was both timely and, with the broken ornaments, more inventive than the others. Leaving the ornaments unlabeled avoids becoming tendentious and overly-partisan, and I like the holiday sweater-vest and the self-satisfied smile.
Meanwhile, Clay Bennett brings the Pope into things, perhaps a bit indirectly. Obviously, since conservatives are the believers in trickle-down, this has a more partisan edge than Sack's cartoon, but Bennett makes it personal rather than political by making them "average people" rather than congressmen or bankers.
For that reason, this isn't about our leaders or our bosses or anyone out there in the great beyond, about whom we can only wring our hands while we stand by helplessly. I like that, and, whether he was thinking of the Pope's statement or not, he's spreading the message that it's not about how "they" need to change. It's about how "we" have moral obligations in the world, and to the next generation.
Speaking of which:
Turning from politics to personal comedy, Watch Your Head offers a rare specimen: A millenial-based gag that really cracks me up, possibly because WYH is so firmly character-based. Cory Thomas does very little generation-bashing but rather creates recognizable individuals.
So poor Omar's absurd parents are, in and of themselves, ridiculous people, not some sweeping stereotype-based indictment of everyone over 40, while his main characters tend to see their shortcomings as personal challenges, not the result of a demographic conspiracy.
Which may be why it remains so obscure: People like to laugh at things they know they are supposed to laugh at, and there's really no huge originality gulf between "Sarge beats up Beetle," "Dagwood gets a midnight snack" and "Edgy cartoonist whines about Boomers" except that the last is geared for a more narrow, but certainly no less pre-programmed, demographic.
And I don't know how many people will get every panel of Shannon Wheeler's multi-gag Too Much Coffee Man, but I laft both at the individual jokes and the overall concept.
Timing was good, too. I used to order Christmas cards from one of a couple of major art museums each year. For instance, one year fairly soon after my divorce, I sent cards from MOMA that were a still from "8 1/2" of a fantasy sequence in which Mastroianni arrives bearing gifts for his former wives, ex-lovers and women he wished had become his lovers, all of whom live together in a big house.
For those who got the reference, a huge laugh. For those who didn't, a lovely, snowy photo appropriate for a single dad's Christmas card.
Now they've basically retreated into cat cartoons, stylized snowflakes and a kind of bland Yuletide nothingness. Just last week, I quickly leafed through one catalog that used to be a holiday mainstay and pitched it.
On a bright note, the important difference between major art museums and PBS is that the museums still have great art on display in their other galleries, even if their main exhibits seem to have become commercially popular, ephemeral crapola.
By contrast, I think PBS is down to about two hours of programming a week that is anything like their original mission.
See remarks on giving the public what they want, above.
And, finally, a tribute to the cartoons you won't be seeing here:
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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