That made me laugh, from the comments section of "Is the print newspaper comics page in trouble?" (WaPo).
That comment prompts someone else to say: "Insert GenX rant about 'Family Circus' from the 1999 movie 'Go.'" Okay, I will insert it:Ha ha. That reminds me of a famous thing somebody once said about the comic strip "Nancy": "It's harder not to read 'Nancy' than to read it."
The article has some material about Scott Adams — whose strip was cut from 77 Lee Enterprises newspapers and who has had individual daily strips censored in other newspapers.
Adams had recently satirized environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies and workplace diversity efforts, and had introduced a Black character named Dave who identifies as White....
Some commenters are taking shots at him, including this: "To be fair, Scott Adams also went crazy seven years ago and stopped being funny when he started being political... not unlike Charles Schultz stopping being funny when he started being religious, or the Family Circus guy stopping being funny when he drew his first comic, which has been repeated twice a week for the last century."
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69 comments:
uh, newspapers are in trouble
comedians will be fine
Leftists cannot laugh at themselves.
They cannot allow others to laugh at them.
All humor they find funny must be mean spirited and attack their political opponents.
At their core leftists are insecure bullies whose only goal is to tell other people what to do.
our paper usually* has Blondie comics.. It's Hilarious! That Dagwood guy Loves his sandwiches!
usually* Sometimes Stuff happens, and there isn't room; Like when the grocery store opened in Elgin
Dennis the menace, dressed in cowboy clothes, holding a cap gun, says to his buddy, “ see how steady my hand is? That’s because I I don’t drink or kiss girls.” Another comic I remember from decades ago: Senator Snort, standing in front of a judge, looking at the jury. “Your honor, my client is entitled to a trial in front of a jury of his peers, and there isn’t a single pickpocket on that jury.” I remember some funny comics from yesteryear.
The local paper has just reorganized their Comics page. It's horrible. But you can go on-line to view what's been removed! Ugh. As if I want another reason to use a device. Newspapers seem to want to become online providers of content, and they lack the skillset for that. There is a beautiful tactile sensation one gets from a newspaper.
You cannot ridicule the idiocy of esg where virtue sigmaling is expensive
Are liberals so authoritarian that they define what is funny?
Yes!
When were Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel EVER funny?
I love the movie "Go". It has some real good performances and a script that is good on many levels.
comic - definition
NOUN
a comedian, especially a professional one: "a stand-up comic"
synonyms: comedian · comedienne · funny man · funny woman · comedy actor
NORTH AMERICAN (comics) comic strips.
synonyms: cartoon paper · comic paper · funny magazine · comic book · graphic novel
cartoon
NOUN
1. a simple drawing showing the features of its subjects in a humorously exaggerated way, especially a satirical one in a newspaper or magazine:
"the minister faced a welter of hostile headlines and mocking cartoons"
2. a motion picture using animation techniques to photograph a sequence of drawings rather than real people or objects:
"we watched Yogi Bear cartoons on TV"
3. a full-size drawing made by an artist as a preliminary design for a painting or other work of art:
"the tapestries are based on a set of cartoons commissioned by Pope Leo XI"
Notes:
Some people believe cartoons and comics are relegated to just humor. This is blatantly and historically incorrect.
Family Circus is not meant just for humor. It is meant to be endearing. Typically, those with children and especially grandchildren will get that.
To further Big O's point, I remember back in the day there were even some entries on the 'comics' page that were more soap opera than humor. IIRC it was 'Rex Morgan, M.D.'
Comic strips that actually were funny, ranked:
1. Calvin and Hobbes
2. Far Side
3. The Lockhorns
4. Dilbert
5. Garfield
6. Nancy
Oops, sorry. Nancy was supposed to be on this list: Comic strips that were never, not once funny:
1. Nancy
2. Prince Valiant
3. Alley Oop
4. The last twenty years of Peanuts
5. Cathy
I thought Doonesbury was funny in the ‘70s but then I graduated from high school. My local paper is still paying for his strip which is mostly reruns of his worst strips.
"To be fair, Scott Adams is a bad person, so it's ok to censor him."
FYFH
I recognize and enjoy the genius of Ernie Bushmiller.
Not two rocks in the background, not four, but a carefully considered three.
Achilles said...Leftists cannot laugh at themselves.
They cannot allow others to laugh at them.
That's mostly true, but not completely true. Tina Fey's work includes some pretty savage satire of liberals. The left-wing characters on 30 Rock were all narcissistic mediocrities. The Kimmy Goes to a Play episode of Kimmy Schmidt is harshly anti-woke (and there are regular bits making fun of microaggressions and other liberal tropes).
Dave Begley said...
"When were Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel EVER funny?"
I don't think Stephen Colbert has ever been funny or even edgy. Always the low hanging leftist fruit for him. Jimmy Kimmel's high point was ,"The Man Show". It's been down hill for him ever since.
Like Jay Leno said, "When you choose a side you've lost half your audience." The unspoken part is, and half your income.
"Go" is one of my favorites. I'll watch Sarah Polley in anything, and I love the scenes with William Fichtner and Jane Krakowski as an Amway couple.
Reading Family Circus or Nancy is an exhibition of hope. You read, sometimes you can't not read it but each time, for just a split second, you have hope that you will finally see why they are such mainstays on the comics page. You never do, but for that brief time, you have hope.
Given that our local paper is down to less than 20 pages and two sections, that full page of comics now represents more than 5% of the content and factoring ad space closer to 10% of the content of the daily “news.” So they must have had research that kept comics at a full page in the dailies for revenue purposes. But given all the derision of politics sullying the funny pages none of the managing editors have cut Doonesbury? Smells like bullshit to me. That Trudeau is less entertaining than the PM.
I think the concept of a black character who identifies as white is both brilliant and hilarious.
And if it enrages somebody, it's successful. The more somebodies the better.
Gilbar,
I used to love Blondie but have not read a newspaper in decades.
Is it still violent? I always got a kick out of Ms Withers beating her husband with a stick. (Wrapped in an umbrella, but still...)
I never understood why he never hauled off and just coldcocked her. What's good for the gander is good for the goose, right?
I also miss Ms Capp beating her husband with a 10# pocketbook, Loweezy beating Snuffy Smith with a cast iron skillet, Maggie beating Jiggs with a rolling pin and so on.
Good times, good times. Domestic abuse is always good for a laugh. (As long as it is the woman beating the man)
John Stop fascism, vote republican Henry
I should’ve included “Herman” on my list of sometimes funny comic strips. Also “Marmaduke,” though only very infrequently.
While “Blondie” was seldom funny, there was a real draw to that strip and that draw was the drawing of Blondie herself.
Dave B,
Jimmy Kimmel used to crack me up on The Man Show and Win Ben Stein's money.
He is good as a comic. Not so much as a host.
John Stop fascism vote republican Henry
"To further Big O's point, I remember back in the day there were even some entries on the 'comics' page that were more soap opera than humor. IIRC it was 'Rex Morgan, M.D.'"
Yep. My favorite cartoon growing up was Gil Thorp.
"Gil Thorp is a sports-oriented comic strip which has been published since September 8, 1958. The main character, Gil Thorp, is the athletic director of Milford High School and coaches the football, basketball, and baseball teams."
In a way it’s not fair to judge these comics on the funny scale any more than to judge “The Simpsons” based on the last 20 years of it. The first five: true satire, often hilarious. The last twenty: jokes.
I have read Scott Adams strip "Dilbert" since he began it almost 30 years ago. When he began it was a part time venture when he was still working at Pac Bell. It was always about making fun of the work setting. That boss is a caricature of his real boss at the time, who was not amused. Finally he quit his job to draw the cartoon full time. I'm not sure his quitting was all voluntary. It began as ridicule of work peculiarities and is continuing in the same theme. These days, the left has no sense of humor and will try to destroy anyone who laughs at its foibles.
I can remember a Dennis the Menace comic I thought was funny (more than 50 years ago). Dennis is in bed and his dad has brought his a glass of water and Dennis says: "That's bathroom water. I want kitchen water."
Why would I always remember that? Shows how low the bar was that that was memorable.
If you never were an engineer in a large, soulless, corporation then the humor in Dilbert will probably escape you.
If you’re a 21st century leftie, the entire concept of “humor” will escape you.
THe liberal/left has zero tolerance for any art or entertainment that strays 1 milimeter from the "party line". They control it, and they have no desire to read or see anything remotely "conservative".
As for comics, I stopped reading them 20 years ago, except for Dilbert. The Best ones were Peanuts, the far side, and Calvin and Hobbs.
Not sure why Adams gets censored. His comic has always satirized the corporate world in America, and the corporate world is now careening headlong into ESG.
Seems a fair target to me.
Adams is funny because he exposes the corporate dreariness and idiocy that mirrors the lives of many of us who worked in tech.
Dilbert is like a drawn version of 'Office Space' or 'Silicon Valley.'
'Dennis is in bed and his dad has brought his a glass of water and Dennis says: "That's bathroom water. I want kitchen water."'
This is a version of, "You'd better cut the pizza into 4 slices, I couldn't possibly eat 8."
" "Dilbert" ... was always about making fun of the work setting"
In "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life," Adams talks about how it was originally about other aspects of Dilbert's life:
"But I noticed a consistent theme that held for both the fans and the haters: They all preferred the comics in which Dilbert was in the office. So I changed the focus of the strip to the workplace, and that turned out to be the spark in the gasoline."
I'm guessing he's done his podcast and Twitter in a similar way. He's doing different things, seeing what gets the most response, giving more of that, and refining his work based on response. That how he became "right wing" (even while asserting that he's "to the left of Bernie").
Is the print newspaper comics page in trouble? Only in so far as the print newspaper is in trouble -- and that trouble is deep.
Sports is no longer dependent on the newspaper sports page -- they've adapted. Micky Mouse and Donald Duck aren't just surviving, they're thriving in the world of Disney.
The only constant is change and we all have to change -- evolve -- as the world around us changes.
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...
Given that our local paper is down to less than 20 pages and two sections, that full page of comics now represents more than 5%
Our paper's comics consist of Blondie (and one other, i think), and like i say; it only gets printed if there's room (and with the craziness around the local cities buying golf courses*, there isn't always room).
buying golf courses*
The city of Fayette was going to sell their half of the golf course, but they couldn't get enough money; so they bought the entire golf course for $1
The city of West Union bought their local golf course, so that there could still be golf in town; then turned it (is turning) it into a Bike Path/Trout Stream
Don't get me started on Calmar's golf course!!
Darkisland said...
I used to love Blondie but have not read a newspaper in decades.
Is it still violent?
I don't think so (but, i only get one strip per week (at best).
Mr Dither's still fires (or threatens to fire) Dagwood; a LOT. Don't remember seeing Cora for awhile.
There's still a LOT of violence, but it's mostly done to very large sandwiches
editors - side note to comics
Comics have rarely gone to public print without editing unless published privately.
Many examples exist from the suppression of a daily piece to cancelling entire comics. Even benign and much appreciated comics have been edited.
example:
An editor here used to date the editor for The Far Side. She related this:
Remember the pane with the rhino next to an opened box, wearing shoes and dancing with a caption something like "Ethyl got excited when she received her new tap shoes."?
The original cartoon did not have the box or shoes and was submitted as "Ethyl got excited when a tick-tick bird flew up her ass."
'I'm guessing he's done his podcast and Twitter in a similar way. He's doing different things, seeing what gets the most response, giving more of that, and refining his work based on response. That how he became "right wing" (even while asserting that he's "to the left of Bernie").'
A/B Testing. Kind of standard methodology in business, especially tech marketing where different messages/offers can be blasted out and the results compared for effectiveness.
Peanuts has always been religious. Whoever said that it only became so at some turning point obviously hadn't been reading it for very long.
Mmmmmmmm Blondie. What were we talking about?
All his loyal Dilbert readers are retired and Adams has little to no appeal to the younger generation who have very different work experiences.
Topical humor doesn't have that long a shelf life. A self proclaimed genius like Adams should be aware of that.
Scott Adams became 'right-wing' because he didn't reflexively jump on the Trump Hate Bus in 2015.
Scott Adams is a clever troll. None of his ideological positions are fixed. He has a massive ego, however, so give him that.
As usual, no love for Unger.
C'mon man - Herman is up there with the best.
The SF Chronicle runs two pages of comics every day (Blondie, FCS) but won't stay up late enough to print that day's sports scores.
Anyway, nothing in any paper is funnier than the ads in the Sunday NYT Style Magazine.
In "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life," Adams talks about how it was originally about other aspects of Dilbert's life:
I don't remember any of that. I started reading it in 1995 and recall him writing about how he began. Maybe he has changed his mind.
I don't trust anything Adams says. He's a slippery character, a Tom Sawyer type who got his coworkers to design the strip (a coworker named him Dilbert). He's made various claims about his intellectual abilities that cannot be verified, made claims for the future in one of his Dilbert book that absolutely failed, and used his comedy principles to help a wannabe cartoonist with his strip centered around a fitness center (it failed).
That said, he's should be treated the same as "Doonesbury" (which I'm surprised still runs, but I stopped reading newspapers after getting laid off from one and Trudeau's done nothing newsworthy since, maybe the Reagan administration?
1) Can't have this post/comment thread without a mention of Dysfunctional Family Circus. Far far superior to the original. Google for it.
2) Doonesbury was actually very good for many years back at the beginning. Check out the old collections from that time.
3) Dilbert was and is still excellent. As a long-time engineer - both at large companies and startups - I can tell you: He hits the mark so often!
4) Best comic series ever: The Far Side. It's so far ahead of everything else there's no close runner-ups. "I love these things: Crunchy on the outside and a chewy center!" "Number one, chicken soup is good for the flu, and number two, it's nobody we know!" "Bummer of a birthmark, Hal!"
Loved reading Prince Valiant, Buzz Sawyer, The Phantom, Rick O'Shay ... Can't have any of that toxic masculinity anymore, can we?
Bloom County was quite good for a long time
I still read comics curmudgeon most days, for the ironic take.
Definitely Far Side was the GOAT and Calvin and Hobbes up there. Bloom County was worth following even if I disagree with the politics he was still funny.
These days I find the rather unknown Brewster Rockit the most consistently actually entertaining.
For some good Althouse commentariat harruphing there should be a post about the recent changes at Mark Trail.
I stopped reading Dilbert when it became too predictive of management's actions at my workplace. The bosses were reading it as a guide, I think.
Haven't read the funny pages since Watterson hung it up.
I was a dedicated comics fan but when I cancelled the paper I lost interest. Picked up a couple of Steve Canyon collections, though. Because that was the best adventure strip ever.
I still read the comics in the WaPo (I do it so you don’t have to). No more violence in Blondie. As someone else commented, Mr. Dithers still threatens to fire Dagwood a couple times a month.
As for Mark Trail, it’s a good example of updating the characters to try to appeal to the younger generation. I wasn’t crazy about the original version but the new one goes right over my head (I’m 66). I wonder if the younger folks like it. I doubt it. However, the Sunday strip, which used to provide interesting information about animals, is now almost exclusively devoted to screeds about how we are ruining the planet.
Newspaper comics aren't funny, pretty much ever. However, the Comics Curmudgeon's commentary on newspaper comics is hilarious.
It's the same kind of enjoyment as watching Honest Trailers or Movie Pitch Meeting when they describe a terrible new movie you're never going to see.
There was a time when Scott Adams could make very funny comics satirizing the modern corporate workplace without being "political." Unfortunately, that time has passed. The modern corporate workplace is now inherently political, and if you have the 'wrong" politics you will pay a real price.
I remember seeing Katie Holmes at an after-hours in Manhattan around the late 90's. It seems she might've been researching the Go movie role.
Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side are definitely on the Mt. Rushmore of comics.
I will put is a word for The Wizard of Id, and the one that McNelly did on the side. Also the occasional Hagar the Horrible.
It's been a very long time since I looked at a newspaper, let alone the comics.
Garry Trudeau was the speaker at my college graduation. I don't remember a word he said. At that point it was simply confirmation of my belief that the inmates were running the asylum.
David-2 @ 11:37: Absolutely right abt Larson.
Two Chinese on the Great Wall:
"Now let's see that dog get in here."
If you look at 19th century cartoons and jokes a lot of them aren't funny. Maybe droll would be a better word. Readers, listeners, and perusers were just supposed to look at them and chuckle and think "That's just how _________ are." You can fill in the blank with just about anything.
The idea was to touch on some mildly amusing "truth" about children or adults or women or men or old people or rich people or hoboes or framers or foreigners or ethnic minorities that people already knew or thought they knew. "The Family Circle" was like that. But in my family, we really did think it was funny, as well as very true to life.
In my younger days, adults thought "funny books" and the "funny papers" were for kids, but adults would still take a look at the newspaper cartoon sections, though not at comic books. Today, that's turned around. It seems like "adults" are buying comic books (graphic novels) and nobody's reading the newspaper comics.
But even though adults may have thought the cartoons were for kids, the kids could often be confused and wondering if "Prince Valiant" or "Mary Worth" or "Gasoline Alley" or "Rex Parker" or "Terry and the Pirates" were grown-up things we would grow into later. That day never came, because most of the older strips were cancelled or discontinued.
By the Eighties and Nineties you had a whole new set of comic strips, that nobody much cared about. You would look at the "Far Side," "Calvin and Hobbes," "Garfield" and, to be annoyed, "Cathy," but most of the strips weren't read and probably weren't meant to be read, but were just intended to fill the empty space. It might be nice if we were still unsophisticated enough to still follow and enjoy "Dick Tracy" or "Mary Worth," but unfortunately we aren't.
Adams has said on his podcast, he quit the corporate world after the second time, he was explicitly told by his boss, he was passed over for a promotion because he was a white male. He also said, before the ESG series started in Dilbert, that he now had "f.u." money, and was going to devote his life to so mocking ESG, that it no longer would crash the world economy [see, e.g. Sri Lanka, for a real world example of what whole-hearted adoption of its principles can so quickly render unto poor, unsuspecting, non-Choate types]. He predicted he would be cancelled, but didn't know if it would be entirely, or only by some of his usual papers. He's also said every Dilbert written in the last 20 years has been under the influence of sativa (not indica).
In the WaPo's favor, one of their few advantages over the NYTimes is better comics. And now I wonder if the the NYTimes is comic free again, but I don't care enough enough to research it. If they have dropped their comics, I would suggest they also drop their columnists, they aren't funny anymore.
These people stopped being funny when they gored my sacred cow!
There was a stretch in the 80s (I think) when a new person took over Nancy and it was actually funny and almost hip, but the drawing was uglier.
Most of them have a few clever years before becoming stale and repetitious. The Argyle Sweater is (or was a few years ago) a pretty good Far Side takeoff and sometimes makes you think for the joke. The early ones alternated letter size, which was annoying.
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