The Evil Empire and its State

I could probably rant forever on this topic, but, first of all, Tom the Dancing Bug has covered enough bases that I don't have to (Seriously, check it out: Seven of the Top 15 grossing Broadway shows are live versions of movies), and second of all ...

Okay, there's no "second of all," except maybe that Saul Steinberg got it so iconically right that every graphic commentary about Gotham's arrogance is inevitably compared to his piece, and never to his detriment.

What's kind of weird is that, while Francis Dahl made a good living poking gentle fun at his home city of Boston, about 80% of the cartoons in the New Yorker skewer the smug self-assurance of its inhabitants with a touch of genteel venom that, well, is part of what makes the place so fantastic.

I think I'm overly sensitive because of living out west for a couple of decades, during which time I repeatedly had to explain that growing up in New York did not mean being able to see the Statue of Liberty (which is in New Jersey) from my front porch.

Saranac Lake, cradle of Garry Trudeau and Corey Pandolph, has billed itself as "the green side of the Big Apple," but nobody else knows that the Adirondacks are even there. The Bronx is up, the Battery's down, and the remaining 99.4% of the land mass is airily dismissed as "Upstate."

It can be amusing when the NYTimes dispatches some modern version of Stanley (no, no, not the flat one -- this one) out into these savage, unexplored hinterlands, like the reporter who, in covering a Phish concert in Plattsburgh, reported that you could see Vermont across the river. 

Ah, yes. The river we call "Lake Champlain." And that's not Vermont, it's New York. In fact, it's still Plattsburgh. You're just gazing across the bay, dahling.

Or the one sent out to discover the smallest city in the state for a story on the 1990 census, who reported that Speculator is so small (How small is it?) that "it doesn't even have an ATM."

Heh. How'd you discover that, hot shot?

For some reason, the rest of the state seems divided between those who embrace the city and can't get there often enough, and others who would happily take a giant chainsaw, make a cut at Yonkers and let it drift out into the ocean, but I'm really in neither camp.

I'd cut it off at Kingston.

 

Give this one another try:

If you haven't been following Luann, you might want to tune back in.

Not for any particular arc, though these from yesterday and today -- in which her very-long-distance BF is visiting from Australia -- have some real promise, but because Greg Evans has taken on the original Luann as a creative consultant and co-writer.

I'm not a huge fan of legacies, though some work out pretty well, but this is different than simply passing on the strip to Junior. Karen Evans explained her role a few months ago in this posting, and I featured the changeover then, including some previously unreleased commentary from our interview on the topic of the "Luanniverse" as well as the "oh-oh, busted!" moment at which Evans said, "Wait a minute. Are you that 'Mike Peterson'?"

If you have passed on the strip because of the vagaries of the Luanniverse, it's time to give Luann another shot.

Karen Evans' presence began as a subtle nuance, but has grown to the point where it has made a substantial difference in the feel of the strip, taking it from "Daddy looks affectionately at his daughter" into a more three-dimensional piece on adolescence, families and lifeitsownself.

 

And speaking of women in comics:

 I don't know that Luann will ever reach the level of "Stone Soup," "Pajama Diaries" or "Between Friends," and that really isn't its mission, but women-driven strips are a different animal and are, as a whole, one of the best improvements to hit the industry since, I dunno, the invention of ink or something. Nor are those three the only ones in the mix, and it's one helluva step up from overdrawn checkbooks and crumpled fenders.

This year's Reubens included a public program at the Toonseum in Pittsburgh, highlighted by a panel of women cartoonists reflecting on the trend, and you may have missed that, but you can catch a very good interview with "Between Friends" creator Sandra Bell-Lundy on Tom Racine's "Tall Tales Radio."

Tom's podcasts are always worthwhile and I particularly like to load up a few for road trips, but in this one, he and Sandra really get down to the process she went through in setting a tone and creating the characters for her strip, and, from the fan's point of view, it's one of the best he's done.

They do talk about how much other cartoonists enjoy the wonky insider talk about nibs and Bristol board that is a large part of most Tall Tales podcasts, but this one is for the readers, and not just of "Between Friends," because I'm sure other women in the genre have gone through a similar process.

Thoughtful stuff. Don't wait for your next road trip.

 

Here: This ought to square things with my Westchester-raised mother and those offended by the Broadway crack. The Statue of Liberty/New Jersey thing stands as called. (BTW, that's me on the couch.)

i like new york in june, how 'bout you? from Batuhan Kaygı on Vimeo.

Comments

[vppeterson]

You do know, don't you, that she and I went to the same dancing school in LA, a couple of years apart. I progressed to one in Westchester, she did not, and that has made all the difference.

[Mike Peterson]

Well, I knew Dad was a lot taller than Mickey Rooney, but you've got to write down some of this other stuff.

[Mary in Ohio]

Thanks to the miracle of XM radio I can listen to John Sterling's Yankee broadcasts and realize THEY REALLY DO BELIEVE ALL THAT B###S$$T THEY AREN'T JUST SAYING IT!