CSotD: Of Time and the Ribbers
Skip to comments
Our topic today: Where do cartoonists get their ideas?
Or, more specifically, when?
I'm not ignoring politics today. Just waiting for more editorial cartoonists to catch up with the news, because the "when" factor there is apparently "not right away."
Bernie ruined a lot of cartoons yesterday by promising to work with Hillary and asking only that the support for his policy proposals be respected in the platform.
The bastard!
Jeff Danziger is a Vermonter and that may be why he was paying more attention to things. Or he draws faster.
Not sure the tangle he depicts is much of an obstacle, but this is a much better than average representation of the end game than all the "Bernie Won't Quit" and "Mom! Bernie's Ruining Everything!" cartoons that were filed yesterday.
Pat Bagley doesn't mention Bernie, but makes a very current point about the people who think it's clever and insightful to declare both candidates the same. There's also a meme running around Facebook that says something like "My bar ran out of my favorite beer, so I'm going to drink bleach instead."
Here's a clue for Political Geniuses:
- The president serves four years.
- The average Supreme Court justice serves 16 years.
- The next president will appoint two, and most likely three, Supreme Court justices.
I really don't think there are that many people who truly can't spot the subtle differences, and I never considered "Bernie Bots" a real factor, though both candidates had (have) a boatload of obnoxious people over-posting on social media.
But I should put Edmond Burke's words in a permanent spot on the rail here, as often as I reference them:
Because half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that of course they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.
Oh well. Without stereotypes and generalities — fair, unfair, justified or spun from thin air — we'd have a lot fewer political cartoons, and the medium is in enough trouble already.
It would be nice if the obnoxious, offensive trollery on both sides were either equally ignored or given equal play, but that's not how it ever works.
Never mind. We'll come back to the Bernie thing after everyone has had time to catch up with the news.
Meanwhile, Mr. Boffo sets the table (so to speak) for today's actual rant.
I'd like to eat at his house. Having seen the original, British "House of Cards," I found the American knock-off unappealing, I was similarly put off by the forced cultural history lessons of "Mad Men" and I don't have HBO so can't watch "Game of Thrones."
Best I can say about all the chitchat concerning them is that it beats listening to political grasshopper trolls and boy-oh-boy is that some faint praise.
At least people seem to have gotten over posting pictures of the artwork in their lattes. I'll try to be glad for small advances.
There will always, of course, be fads, both hip and hep, but Alex makes a point about what we used to call the Generation Gap back when we were in the smug, ascendant generation.
Now it's just kind of sad and pathetic and this really cracked me up, particularly since it landed on a day full of cultural references that would swoosh over the heads of anyone not in precisely the right demographic microslice.
F'rinstance, I think Tony Cochran is just yanking our chains with obscure references in today's Agnes. The girls managed to score a piglet and are trying to convince Agnes's grandmother that it is, in fact, Trout's younger sister.
The overall gag riffs on Trout's mother's well-established ability to miss the mark through a combination of lack of funds and lack of insight, and I like that the references are so off-the-mark and, to anyone not born between about 1948 and 1954, completely indecipherable.
For everyone else, put on your tap shoes and dance along with the Small Faces from 1967:
Cochran doesn't specify a particular cut for Country Joe, who actually recorded many more songs than just "Feel Like I'm Fixing to Die Rag."
But here's one from roughly the same period as "Itchykoo Park" that doesn't mention tap-dancing but that sure comes as close to capturing the mood as you could possibly wish:
For some reason, that tune didn't get a lot of airplay on the Top 40 stations. It is a puzzlement.
Dan Thompson delivers a counterpunch with today's Brevity, referencing something you have to be within five years of 40 to get.
For the older folks, he's referencing this 1990 song:
Not this 1959 one:
And finally, a Reality Check that offers a bizarrely timeless reference, given that, while Bernie Sanders' refusal to exit the stage in a timely manner seems like a lazy meme, Michael (that's his first name) Philip Jagger's is quite real.
(Here's your actual "Reality Check": Bernie is only two years older than Mick.)
Insider insight: When Whamond says something actually happened in his household, you should probably believe him. He doesn't have to leave home in search of comedy gold, as he recently noted on his Facebook page:
1:45 PM Carla reminds Dave to take watermelon downstairs to the fridge.
11:59 PM Dave sees watermelon still on counter… realizes he will forget so he places watermelon at the top of the stairs.
12:10 AM Dave shuts things down for the night and turns off all the lights upstairs.
12:11 AM Dave trips on watermelon in the dark and falls down the stairs…
So I have no doubt his daughter said that, though perhaps she was thinking of McLovin, whose first name is Andrew.
Well, in my world, anyway.
I'm much too old to get that other cultural reference.
Comments
Comments are closed.