CSotD: You are entering a (somewhat) rant-free zone
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It's not that I'm in a non-ranting mood. I'm always in the mood for a rant.
But there were a lot of cartoons that I really liked today but none that triggered a rant.
Or, at least, not a full-length rant. So treasure the brevity.
Let's start with some football.
The Flying McCoys today isn't about football, but I was half-watching some post-game coverage the other day and they had added a *ding* to let fantasy football fans know there was a new stat posted on the screen. My phone was between me and the TV, and, before I figured out what was going on, I picked it up twice trying to figure out if I'd just gotten some new kind of text message or alert or whatever.
When I was a kid, our dog would bark and run to the door every time there was a doorbell on TV and we'd laugh and laugh. Now that phones on TV and radio make the same noise as they do in real life, it's not so funny.
If this were a rant, I'd mention that the first time I heard the album cut of "Honky Tonk Woman" I was on the Westchester Expressway, but it's not a rant and I didn't actually go off the road anyway, so on to the next comic:
Two words for you, Tank: "Throwback Jersey."
Punchlines that worked:
Well played, Zack Hill.
This is part of an arc at Betty, as well as more long-term ongoing character development, but the last panel lifted today's strip from chuckle to real laughter.
And Rabbits Against Magic plays with an old and pretty tired pun, but then freshens it by dragging in a new one that works so well in context that it lifts the entire strip. And the gag wouldn't work at all if their expectations had been reversed: This way, their disappointment is funnier than the puns. Well played indeed.
Juxtaposition of the week or so
Sherman's Lagoon is just starting an arc about lionfish as an invasive species. Native to the Indian/Western Pacific oceans, they're being released by burned-out aquarium owners in the Atlantic where they are proving to be prolific, hungry and without natural enemies. As with a lot of Jim Toomey's efforts on behalf of the oceans, the strip is a lot funnier than the problem.
It's also a lot funnier than several other strips. Meanwhile, speaking of things people release into the wrong wild …
Meanwhile, over at On a Claire Day, she's been obsessed for several days with the fact that the new neighbor owns a python, which means it's not quite about invasive species yet, but stay tuned, as any Floridian can attest.
I like reptiles but the moral issues are moot because I haven't got space to keep one these days. But one of the dog breeders I've worked with over the years is also a landlady. When a tenant moved out a few years ago, they discovered, during clean up, that a gigantic (by which I mean "enormous") snake he apparently must have thought was lost and gone forever was, instead, curled up and wedged under the gas stove, but still very much alive, and still a couple of yards long.
Apparently, she didn't know the thing was ever there at all, much less did she expect to discover it during the clean-up. I suspect the list of deductions from the damage deposit included a pair of underpants.
Fortunately, she has a good sense of humor, as witness her Christmas card from a few years ago, which still cracks me up every time it rotates through on my screen-saver.
And speaking of Christmas
For cartoonists and comedians, Megyn Kelly is the gift that keeps on giving. While everyone else just makes fun of airhead beauty queens who say stupid things, Fox hires them and puts them on the air.
That third panel of Matt Bors' cartoon reminded me of Melvin Van Peeble's 1970 film, "Watermelon Man," in which Godfrey Cambridge plays a white middle-class racist jerk who wakes up black one morning.
My recollection was that the central conceit wore out before the film ended, but I see it's on Amazon Prime and I may take another look. Certainly, before Eddie Murphy took on the schtick and before Archie Bunker made racist jerks part of the humor landscape, Van Peebles was plowing new ground.
But I'm not ranting here. Matt's wide-eyed, deadpan approach is particularly effective in nailing a topic a lot of people are working on with less success. The last panel is incomparable.
Another that needs no elaboration:
Hadn't seen Natalie Nourigat's work before Bors posted this on the Nib, but I'll watch for it now. This is elegant.
Now let's close with a prayer:
Another topic a lot of cartoonists — including Jonathan Rosenberg at Scenes from a Multiverse — are digging into is Pope Francis and his statements about capitalism and greed and morality.
But David Horsey genuinely dug in and uncovered a lot of other papal pronouncements and, if today's series of uncharacteristically brief commentaries has left you longing for a full-out top-quality rant, his is one that is not to be missed.
No spoilers here, but I promise you'll find some surprises.
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