I have been enjoying the current Prickly City arc in which Hunny Bunny tries to become more likeable.
I do have some sympathy for Hillary Clinton's shall-we-say-prickly relationship with the press, first of all because, as a former First Lady, she is literally surrounded by security.
When Daniel Patrick Moynihan was senator from New York, he'd wander into the newsroom with a press aide, and Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe used to show up places, yes, with a press aide, but still more or less along with everyone else.
Senator Clinton came in a limo with a phalanx of Secret Service cars and was preceded by orders about how to approach a former First Lady that could be summed up as "don't."
It's hard to be approachable as Senator when you are unapproachable as Former First Lady.
Then, too, she has such a long and distinguished history of being targeted by urban legends and outright lies spread by the fringe element of the press that any paranoia she may have on the topic isn't paranoia.
And she can't even talk about it without making it worse: Her honest observation of a vast rightwing conspiracy was spun into the same cycle of nutbag distortion that sank Al Gore with lies about his roles in legislation to fund development of the Internet and in investigating the Love Canal pollution, and the outright fabrications against John Kerry by the Swift Boat Liars.
However, it doesn't explain why she didn't just retire to a farm and be contented to charm the birds off the trees.
We'll see how the whole charm thing plays out, in the funny pages and on the not-so-funny pages.
Juxtaposition of the Old and Wretched
(xkcd)
A bit of a cheat, since xkcd has updated, but I'm sticking with the juxtaposition anyway, because I've got another one to toss in.
Each week, I assign a young (8-to-14) reporter to go to whatever under-R movies are having press screenings in Denver.
This week, one of the offerings was Pixels, which is about aliens misinterpreting a space probe that included old video games and coming back in that form to attack.
Which raised the interesting question of whether anyone who wasn't old enough to know Pac Man, Donkey Kong and suchlike would get anything out of this, other than the ineffable joy of watching Adam Sandler go through his comedic paces?
The kid reporter always takes a parent along as driver anyway, but I had to do some quick math to see if even their parents would be old enough to tell them what the hell was going on.
Some yes, some no. Here's the third part of this juxtaposition:
But wait! That's not all!
I like Steve Melcher's That is Priceless, except that it is always too small, perhaps a format issue between his website, where the pieces originally run, and the GoComics site where I see them.
Today's particularly struck me for just that reason, because a few years ago I had the chance to visit the Chicago Art Institute and saw the original painting, which -- to my complete surprise -- is MASSIVE.
Well, it's about 9' x 7', which is a lot bigger than I expected. I've also seen Warhol's Mao in person, and it's truly massive, but its point is to be truly massive and I think Caillebotte had somewhat more refined goals for this piece.
Still, it had to be huge. Seeing it full size is a completely different experience: Every glistening wet cobblestone stands out as a separate piece of art. It's magnificent, and, instantaneously, something that I had often seen in books but hadn't grokked in fullness became a favorite.
Which brings us to this: Everyone is reformatting their webpages to fit on phone screens, a move I am resisting because (A) my blogging service hasn't offered it yet and (B) I feel it's a bit of a travesty to reduce art -- even comic strips -- to postage-stamp size, especially when we're all expected to (rightfully) criticize print media for doing the same thing.
So I inform you of this with a bit of reluctance, but here you go: Amazon will be having a sale this Sunday of cartoon collections formatted for Kindle.
I'm not sure if the comics on that GoComics announcement are a sample or the full offering, but 80% off is not to be despised.
But view responsibly. It's nice to pay only 20% of the price, but you shouldn't only view 20% of the artwork.
If you don't have a tablet, remember that Kindle can also work on a full-sized screen.
Friends don't let friends view art on telephones.
Though I suppose that's part of everybody becoming their own editor, right?
After all, it isn't 2009 anymore.
You sent a child to an Adam Sandler movie ? Have you no heart ? I have seen two Adam Sandler movies-I know,fool me once ,etc- and I still regret having done so. I am in my sixties and I have seen more than trailer inflated into a movie but to send an innocent child to see such a thing.
Posted by: Robert Cunningham | 07/10/2015 at 10:51 AM
Well, yes, but it also stars Kevin James.
Posted by: Mike Peterson | 07/10/2015 at 10:56 AM
All through school, all I knew of Monet's art was small reproductions in books — small because when I finally saw them and realized they were freaking ENORMOUS, the experience changed immediately. I try to walk a bit of a line with my cartoon, only because I do get a bit wordy sometimes: large enough that you dont have to futz with it IF you're looking at it on a tablet. But a phone? Screw that stuff... LOL
Posted by: sean martin | 07/10/2015 at 11:11 AM
This always makes me giggle.
https://youtu.be/wKiIroiCvZ0
Posted by: nothstine | 07/10/2015 at 12:05 PM
I was truly lucky, a few years back, to see an exhibit of George Stubbs' horse paintings at a Baltimore gallery. I've loved Stubbs since he before he was allowed into Fine Art collections, but I was still blown away at both the size ("Whistlejacket" is a painting at life size) and depth and clarity of the colors and mesmerizing detail in even the more mundane paintings - the shine of a phaeton's wheel spoke, for instance, much like those cobblestones.
Posted by: Julia | 07/10/2015 at 04:46 PM