CSotD: Comic Relief
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There seems to be a contest to see who can draw the best cartoon about ICE agents peeing with their shock gloves on. Bado has several more at his blog, which spares me having to collect an array.
I’ll deal with the gloves more seriously tomorrow, but, in the meantime, I would invite you to dwell upon the obsessions of the male psyche, because I haven’t seen any women cartoonists bringing up this issue. As a country boy, I would compare it to the practice of inviting other boys to pee on an electric cattle fence, which I think was done more as a dare than in an attempt to trick them, and, unlike tipping cows, it was something you could actually do, if you were dumb enough.
And speaking of great minds thinking alike, here’s a
Juxtaposition of the Day
This pair from Sunday reminds me of the foolery in Stand By Me. The movie didn’t bring back memories of going to look at dead bodies, but it certainly recaptured the sense of comradeship of young boys on the brink of puberty, and while swatting imaginary mosquitos didn’t occur in the film, it did in real life, and was part of the process of setting up a hierarchy within the group.
Which would determine who dares whom to pee on the electric cattle fence.
Quick break in the Juxtapositions to point out that Crabgrass is also set in that time of young boys growing up, and the current story arc has been fun.
As it happens, the first woman I went out with post-divorce was the ex-wife of the principal at my son’s school, which didn’t create any problems on my end of things, since I’d always gotten along well with both of them, as had my son, and their divorce seemed as cordial as is possible. However, I’d had an extended job subbing there, in the course of which I threw their daughter out of class. She hadn’t forgotten and things didn’t last.
Probably best to keep different elements of your life at arm’s length from each other, but we’ll see how Kevin and his mom and his principal get through it all.
Juxtaposition of the Day #2 if you don’t count the gloves
There are coincidences in cartooning, and there are also gagwriters, and it sometimes seems that two different cartoonists got the same gag from someone. I don’t condemn artists for buying a gag once in awhile, given how many they are expected to crank out in the course of a year, but I’d point out that while this pairing is based on the same concept, each strip is very distinctly written.
Dogs of C Kennel has dogs of different personalities, but remains very doggy, while Pooch Cafe is based on Poncho’s blend of dog obsessions and human personalities, and those distinctions are very evident in how they framed the idea, whether it was purely coincidental or suggested.
Dogs of C Kennel has the most literal translation, but I can’t argue with what Poncho encounters, and in either case, the laugh is in how unsurprising it turns out to be.
You’ll note I said those two strips were based on the same concept, and I meant “based on.” One of the benefits of being an editor is that you’re allowed to impose your eccentric preferences on your writers, and here’s a way I let the youngsters on my staff in Denver know that I didn’t want to see “based off of” in their copy.
I don’t know if it’s a real grammar rule or not, but as editor-imposed rules go, I think I was being reasonable.
Collins clearly has a longer list of eccentric usage rules, but he has the advantage of being British and thus permitted to rail against American usage creeping into his life. For my part, I don’t understand why people in New York stand on line instead of in line like the rest of us, while anyone in America who speaks of renting a flat or going up in a lift is being pretentious.
This topic brings to mind the line from My Fair Lady in which Higgins grouses that “in America they haven’t used it in years,” which is clever but the whole movie is, as the British say, too clever by half. If you ever have the chance, watch the film of G.B. Shaw’s play Pygmalion, with Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller, which is far more interesting than the fluffery it inspired.
Speaking of award-winning movies, Iffland illustrates one of the main factors that make award shows unwatchable. IIRC, back when Bob Hope and Johnny Carson hosted the Oscars, they handled the comedy and the presenters largely stuck to announcing the candidates and the winners.
Iffland is right about the wretched delivery, but it’s only fair to point out that, for all that these award shows spend on decor and music and so forth, they sure can’t be spending much on writers.
I’m at an age at which I see doctors with some frequency and I got a laff out of this one. I do like the doctor having all my records at hand, including those from other visits to other specialists, so I have no problem with the computers themselves.
The issue, rather, is the number of hospitals now owned by vulture capitalists, who put doctors on an assembly line and seem more concerned with how many patients they see rather than how many they help. I like my doctors and have had the same GP for nearly 20 years, but now he’s a PCP and seems a bit more rushed than he used to.
Ah well. I’m sure things will improve once we’ve finished rounding up and deporting all the LPNs and aides.
Wiley offers a little bittersweet hope, in that voters appear to be waking up to the fact that all the good news seems to benefit those who make their living on Wall Street rather than the people who trusted them to lower prices, avoid unnecessary wars and make sure Social Security is there when the cat food runs out.
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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