CSotD: Ironically, this one is not like a root canal
Skip to comments
I don't feature animations here very often because, well, because I hate them.
Timing is one of the critical attributes of comedy, and, in a comic strip, it is a particular technique that sets static comedy apart from performance comedy, to coin a couple of terms.
That is, timing is always critical, but when what you have to work with is static panels, the way you time a gag is different than the way you would time it in a standup routine, a TV sitcom or a song, because, in those formats, the creator has more direct control of the pacing and several other elements.
In a comic strip, you have to anticipate the reader's own pacing in order to impose your timing effectively. I've written about my objections to animated comic strips in depth before, but the bottom line is that comics are created to be read, not read aloud.
Here's the critical passage from that longer analysis:
If we're sitting around reading the paper and you come across a comic strip you think is worth reading, I want you to pass the paper over, point it out and then sit back and wait for me to read it.
I do not want you to read it out loud, pointing at each panel. I'm not illiterate, and it isn't the same medium when you interpret the voices and impose your own pacing. Fact is, it's annoying and it keeps me from focusing on the strip itself, much less enjoying it.
That's what animated comic strips feel like to me
And I stand by that. Most animated comic strips are as funny as a root canal.
So, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to show you what is actually not the exception that proves the rule, because in this brilliant animated piece, Rina Piccolo not only does none of those things I object to, but she makes me laugh aloud several times and generally delivers not only a bravura performance on its own but a model of how to avoid undermining good cartooning in a cross-media interpretation:
I've got nothing to add but applause. And laughter.
Ted Forth: The Voice of Reason
A good rule in reading Sally Forth is that, when Ted becomes the rational one, you should be very afraid.
The Dilbertization of America has reached the point where paranoia is a pretty sensible operating system.
"There is no next round of layoffs"? Really, Sally?
I know what she means. When there's a snowstorm and someone says, "Think it will stop?" the wiseass response is "It always has!"
But there is always a next snowstorm, and, these days, there is always a next round of layoffs.
What Sally meant was "scheduled" or "announced."
But there is always a next round of layoffs because that's how you strip and cannibalize a company, whether to wring out the profits for your own immediate enrichment or to jack up the P/L ratio for a quick sale, once you've delivered a mortal wound and are scheming to get out before it implodes.
Sally particularly stood out this morning because yesterday, as soon as the CBO announced that, while raising the minimum wage would lift 900,000 people out of poverty, it would cost a point-three percent reduction in jobs, the headlines blared not
"RAISING MINIMUM WAGE WOULD HELP ALLEVIATE POVERTY"
but
"RAISING MINIMUM WAGE WOULD COST 500,000 JOBS"
because the goal is not to keep people off welfare but, rather, to use welfare as a mechanism to maintain profits.
The report is basically inconclusive on how the increase would impact the federal budget overall, suggesting, for example, that the effect on the deficit would be somewhat inconsequential. And it doesn't project specifics on the impact on public assistance at all, being content with some fairly vague observations about the Earned Income Tax Credit and Medicaid.
But we're already seeing the commentary in political cartoons, which dwell on the raw number, 500,000 jobs, rather than the percentage, 0.3%, and haven't yet mentioned the 900,000 people lifted out of poverty.
It's Obamacare Job Loss redux, though granted a little more credible this time around, in that you only have to cherry-pick your facts, you don't have to deliberately misrepresent them. Still, it seems just as ripped-from-the-talking-points and no less unresearched.
I'd like cartoonists on both sides to be a little more thoughtful, but perhaps that's wishing for what has never been.
Meanwhile, however, there is a large and growing element of "C'Mon, Man" at work.
The Prime Directive here stops me from pointing them out directly, but it's distressing to see anti-Obama forces revealing the startling fact that, when the president of France paid a state visit to the United States, he was given a fancy dinner at taxpayer expense, as if that were some new Obama policy for wasting public funds, or that — and this will really make you gasp — the Obama administration is appointing wealthy people to ambassadorships.
I bet even Ted Forth knew about state dinners and ambassadorships.
Of course, we're dealing with cartoonists who had never heard of Teleprompters until 2008 and remain convinced that only politicians born in Kenya need them.
C'mon, man.
(By the way, as a reporter, I often liked the people I interviewed even when I didn't agree with them. If you want to see what that's like, go to Netflix and watch "Mitt." I came away feeling sorry for the guy on a personal level.)
Comments 3
Comments are closed.