CSotD: Almost no politics. And only a little existentialism.
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Every time I feature "Existential Comics," I end up putting in a disclaimer about whether you have to be a philosophy major to get the joke. So, to keep up that tradition, let me say that you don't have to have had more than a faint brush with existentialism to find "Existential Werewolves" — of which this is but a single panel — incredibly funny.
Well, you need a faint brush. The first time I heard anyone use the word in its absolute literal meaning was when Benjamin Netanyahu said that some Arab country or group posed an "existential threat to Israel" and I had this picture of all these Israelis suddenly wandering around psychologically paralyzed with self-doubt, like maybe the Arabs were dropping leaflets from airplanes posing insoluable questions about the meaning of it all.
But we're not doing politics today. Really.
Well, not much anyway. Go read about the werewolves. You'll L.
Perhaps even OL.
Juxtaposition of the Day
(Dustin)
(There is a hint of existentialism in today's Dustin, because if he had more than a grand in the bank, he'd probably get his own place, which would implode the strip.
But I'm including it as a juxtaposition because I often comment on cultural references in comic strips, and I wonder how many people under, say, 40 or 50 even have checkbooks anymore?
I write a check each month to my landlord, but otherwise I don't write more than maybe 20 checks a year, and I don't bother reconciling or balancing because my banks do all that on-line.
Which sorta kinda segues to Sally Forth because I laughed at poor Jackie — who is more of a perpetual adolescent than an actual Millennial — going to all that trouble for nothing.
I did my taxes Sunday and part of that was downloading the year's statements from one bank in a single spreadsheet and from the other as a dozen PDFs.
Either format was fine, but I don't really understand how to use Excel and I only have Microsoft Office on my computer for Word, because I work with people who use it. But, yeah, I could open the spreadsheet.
But, still, come on: PDFs are the universal language.
Granted, I'm being a snob: I do all my writing in In Design, which you have to be a professional writer/editor to need but which, if you do have it, is kind of like having a Lexus in the driveway with Word being the Ford Escort in the garage.
Still, I kind of think of most of the doodads apps that come with Microsoft Office as at least bloatware if not scumware, intended to do tasks that nobody needs.
For instance, I've done presentations where the tech people — usually at a university — expect and therefore require you to have things set up in PowerPoint despite it being easier to just scroll through your JPGs.
Which I guess is based on my assumption that everyone has Photoshop, which also isn't fair, but still, PowerPoint has a reputation. I gather Keynote is the Apple version and my guess is that someone Dustin's age would sneer at them both.
Nearly as much as he'd sneer at the idea of keeping a checkbook.
Serendipity
Pretty sure Maine resident Lincoln Peirce wrote today's Big Nate without realizing he would be under a winter storm watch today.
Nicely timed. I think he's expected get a foot or so.
Wait, this is real
It's hard even for an absurdist strip like Bizarro to get ahead of reality. I saw a vanity plate in New York that read "Namaste."
Thought it was right in the spirit.
Also ran into this plate, which is neither vanity or modesty but unintentional humor for sysadmins in South Africa and Holland.
Politics leaking into the funnies
I don't know why Jeff Stahler ran this as a Moderately Confused rather than as one of his political cartoons, but I'm all in favor of sneaking messages onto the funny pages, so I'm not questioning it.
Ouch
I mentioned the growing disappointment with Pope Francis the other day, and, specifically, his mishandling of the clery abuse scandal in South America. When this strip began, the people being criticized and corrected were reactionary cardinals, not Himself.
Well, good strips evolve as needed.
And better never late
Speaking of things I mentioned here recently, Clay Jones steps up on the Sunshine Week issue.
Side note: One way to guarantee placement at CSotD is to name-check the blogger in the column explaining your cartoon.
Other side note: The whole Stormy Daniels thing has really unleashed the amateur lawyers on social media. Thank god Trump has not yet deregulated the Bar Association.
Miss Management
After a quarter century of working with schools, it's frustrating and infuriating to see someone so astonishingly ignorant about and hostile to public education put in charge of public education.
I mean, there is this:
I hesitate to talk about all schools in general because schools are made up of individual students attending them.
It is your goddam job to understand and advocate for and talk about "all schools in general," you self-satisfied, out-of-touch nitwit.
But mostly it's this:
We've begun looking at and rolling back a lot of the overreach of the federal government in education.
We all know "Make America Great Again" means going back before the Civil Rights Movement ruined everything, but do you really want to return to — hell, to prolong — the days when kids in some schools were headed for jobs at NASA and kids at other schools were using thirty year old textbooks?
And you could tell which was which by holding a grocery sack next to their skin?
I wasn't gonna be political today, but I love Ann Telnaes' caricature because, politics aside, I wanted Lesley Stahl to reach over and just slap that condescending, plastic, mean-girl smile right off her face.
High and dry, out of the rain
It's so easy to hurt others when you can't feel pain.
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