CSotD: Well, there’s the problem …
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I've got a collection of funny, enjoyable comics to share with you, and then I'm going to bring you right down.
Read on.
Non Sequitur pushes one of my buttons, which is people moving into formerly-remote areas and then complaining about the wildlife, though I'm thinking more of mountain lions than bears.
Most city people who move up into the hills understand and perhaps even welcome bears in their bird feeders, but, for some odd reason, hate going out for their morning jog and being mistaken for deer by other hungry residents.
Meanwhile, there are virtually no rabbits here in the Connecticut River Valley anymore, because we've moved in on their riverine habitat and turned it civilized.
And the ones that adapt — groundhogs and raccoons and skunks and coyotes — are indeed treated like outsiders who don't belong.
Related Juxtaposition of the Day
(Bliss)
As much as I'm tired of "kid staring at his hands" gags, Harry Bliss makes this one work, in part with his artwork and in part with fitting into the theme of city folks in the wild. And certainly, though unintentionally, with the way it intersects with today's Funday Morning.
I dated a woman who had worked a summer at Yellowstone, and, y'know those stories you hear of the asinine questions tourists ask? Like what time they let the bears out, or when they turn on the geysers?
She'd been asked most of them. And we didn't even have smartphones back in them thar days.
We did have campers with TVs, though.
And now we come to today's Mr. Boffo and a breaking of the Prime Directive, but, dammit, city people got to stop being so sure of things that ain't so.
They get their water from a spring.
Ding Dong Dell is about a well. Jack and Jill is not.
City people!
But I'm not trapped in the 19th or even 20th century, and today's Speedbump made me think: As much as parishes depend on member pledges – which could be and probably are done electronically these days – they also count on spur-of-the-moment donations.
If I went to church, I'd have to first stop at the ATM to get some cash and then (sorry, Padre) stop and buy something, because you're not getting a twenty.
And if I belonged to a parish, I'd want some kind of lapel pin to indicate that I had already pledged and wasn't just a cheapskate getting his salvation for free.
Like putting a sprig of parsley on a Big Mac
I share Sally's disdain.
Netflix, no doubt, is making a profit by producing these things, but most of them feel like regular old cheesy TV shows, only with nudity and f-bombs.
I'm not against nudity and my speech is all too generously sprinkled with f-bombs, but I don't consider it art, nor does it elevate a script that could have been produced by an algorithm tied to Neilsen ratings.
Juxtaposition of What's Been Fouling the System
(Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal)
This Juxtaposition is about why I've had so much trouble lately featuring funny strips.
I've been starting each day by checking my email, then checking Facebook, then going through my list of comic sites.
Well, Jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick, no wonder nothing has struck me as funny. Between the trolls and the whiners, Facebook has become a major, major downer.
That's not to say there's virtue in hiding under a rock. We're a nation in crisis and if you're not trying to fix it, you're a collaborator.
Still, the unrelenting negativity — I believe the British term is "shower of shit" — is no way to start your morning.
So today I checked my email and then dove straight into the comics and it's amazing how many of them made me at least smile if not actually laff. I had to pare them down to keep this under control.
Some thoughts about Facebook:
First, to quote my own words from 12/31, which set off this line of thought:
"Don't read the comments" has long been a rule for those bright enough to know what a "conversation" sounds like in the real world, and socially adept enough to have been included in a few.
However, while that's wise when you are reading an article in the Washington Post or Atlantic, the rule fails in a place like Facebook, where the comments are not just appended to the content but are the content
Second, several of my cartoonist Facebook friends allow trolls to trash their work on their own Facebook pages, which means that a good, or at least interesting, cartoon becomes a mire in which pigs wallow. I have graphically expressed my opinion and here it is for you.
Finally, I'm not convinced that Facebook has much value in driving traffic.
The number of "likes" I get there is not reflected in the number of hits I get here — not that I expect a one-to-one equivalence, but days I get no likes and days I get lots of likes are pretty much the same on my counter, which makes me suspect that people are reflexively "liking" the snippet of cartoon I offer as a teaser without clicking through.
And, jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick (Reprise), if I show you one cartoon — even if I showed the whole thing, which I don't — and list four or five cartoonists in the description of the day's posting, I would think you'd realize there was more to see somewhere, perhaps even in that live link I've provided.
In short (yeah, too late for that), Facebook is beginning to be a daily downer.
Which I can verify because I started today's post with this at the top and, by the time I finished it, I didn't feel like talking about funny comic strips, so I moved it to the bottom and then worked to forget it so I could present the good stuff.
Not kidding.
Here's your depressing but insight-filled moment of zen:
— The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. I'm not sure who is the bigger a****** in this
exchange but I'd guess one of them is less intentionally so than the other.
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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