CSotD: Doing what you do do well
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There have been floods of selfie cartoons lately, most likely as a result of a convergence of the faux-outrage over the selfie the Prez was in at the joyous commemoration of Nelson Mandela's life, plus the annual announcements of what is new-and-hip that come up each January.
Selfies are tiresome not so much for the form, which can be fun, but for the incredibly unrelenting frequency with which some people post photos of their own faces. If the Internet allows one sort of person to be more blunt and cruel in their comments than they would ever be in person, it enables another type to be more shallow and self-absorbed than any person with a modicum of self-respect would dare to be in three dimensions.
In any case, whatever the merits of the selfie, most of the cartoons about them have been pretty unremarkable, which is a polite word for "lame."
But Dave Coverly made me laff this morning. The topic of good-art/bad-writing versus bad-art/good-writing comes up a lot in cartoon circles, but it sometimes leaves poor little good-art/good-writing as neglected as the kid who never gets in trouble like his siblings.
In this particular cartoon, not only is the situation completely ridiculous, but the people are depicted as deranged, and yet within the tolerance where they aren't so absurd as to strain credulity … much.
It's the zone in which Speed Bump dwells, which is why Coverly can take a topic that is rapidly becoming an annoyance and make it not just work but work well.
Speaking of which
It's been a long time since I've seen a drone gag that was worth a tinker's dam, much less actually funny. But today's Barney and Clyde makes another increasingly tiresome concept work by trading on the central premise of the strip, which is that wealthy J. Bernard Pillsbury is out of touch with the common man.
I never laugh at drone strips, but this one cracked me up because it's perfectly fitted to the strip.
And, at the risk of turning this into a left-handed compliment, I would suggest that, given the widening awareness of economic injustice these days, Barney & Clyde would do well to stay in that sweet zone a little more consistently and leave the domestic-life gags to other strips.
And, at another risk — that of embedding a video higher up in the blog than usual — here's my point, as I heard it preached when I was an underage lad hanging out in bars, which, at the time, was the thing that I did well and so did:
Timing also matters
Timing is, if not actually everything, certainly critical in comedy. Thanks a lot, Brad.
As we speak, I have finished my taxes and am waiting for the money to arrive from my diminishing IRA so that I can send it to Washington.
I don't mind paying taxes — I actually like the country more when it's run under a positive social contract and don't mind helping make that happen — but I do mind when the starving artist aspect of doing what I do do well includes watching the last vestiges of my years of corporate bondage (see drone gag, above) dwindle.
There's an ad on TV in which people are given ribbons representing their retirement savings and invited to stretch them out and see when they should plan to die. Not quite how they phrase it, but that's pretty much the message.
I think Brad Diller has been watching that ad. Anyway, I know I have.
Nice piece of gallows humor.
Timing also applies here, but more cheerfully
Red and Rover — a strip set in the nostalgic past — is a sort of personal Juxtaposition of the Day today, because last night I watched a Great Performances on PBS about the Dave Clark Five, a group I thought nobody but me remembered.
First of all, I almost didn't watch because, whenever I see something interesting on the grid for PBS, I assume they're fundraising and will be interrupting it every 10 minutes for 11 minutes of begathon, but that wasn't the case; it was a legitimate documentary.
And, while it didn't include pop references to lava lamps or Andy Warhol, it did feature Twiggy and Paul McCartney, both talking about what a huge influence the DC5 were, along with Bruce Springsteen and Steven Van Zandt, Elton John, Dionne Warwicke, Gene Simmons, Stevie Wonder and some other rather impressive icons.
We liked their music a lot, but we particularly liked their signature very cool clothes, an element that was even discussed in the special. McCartney noted that all the bands dressed well back then, and it was an important element of the moment. After all, the British Invasion was working-class-based, and, on that playing field, when you hit it, you have to do it up right.
But the DC5 took it to another level, which elicted this memory:
One of our classmates, Walt, became the object of some jealousy because not only was his girlfriend, Sue, a smart, cute girl to begin with, but she was also a very talented seamstress who draped her beau in sharp, well-made knockoffs of the DC5's custom-made, high-collared, wide-cuffed paisley-collar-and-cuffs, plain-body shirts.
I was about to say that Walt wasn't even a clothes horse, but, of course, he was. He was Sue's clothes horse.
Lucky bastard.
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