That which we call a comic, and other follies

Start with a bit of Granite State humor. Stephanie Piro, one of the Six Chix, lives about an hour and a half east of me, and so, while that's about as far apart laterally as you can get in this not terribly wide state, we're sort of neighbors.

She describes herself as "once a NYer, always a NYer" -- and I presume she means NYC because she doesn't say otherwise and I'm not fighting that battle today -- but she's evidently picked up on some hardcore Yankee truth. 

Having lived in more urban areas, I'm aware of the notion that letting the cat run wild is usually seen as a problem for local songbirds and perhaps for children's sandboxes, and I had an ex-alley cat who often came home with wounds from various reunions.

Out here, however, letting your cat run free is generally seen as feeding owls, foxes, eagles, coyotes and suchlike. Cats who go out often don't come back and it isn't because they went to live on a farm with a nice older couple.

I was in a conversation a few months ago about some missing cat in which the searcher -- nobody we knew -- had publicly expressed a hope along those lines and it provoked laughter from the group, which sounds harsh but come on.

I suspect the reason there's such a thing as a "Maine coon cat" is that they weigh just under 20 pounds and have some chance of not being mistaken for a sandwich out there.

My rural contemporaries don't dislike cats, but we confine the ones we like, and we also like eagles and foxes, perhaps not so much coyotes.

And they've all gotta eat.

You can toss out bread crumbs or you can let your cat wander. Depends on who you want to feed.

That odd sound you just heard was a billion songbirds laughing.

 

And speaking of laughing at things we shouldn't, Ces has a nice display of tasteless "Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving" cartoons up at Medium Large.

I was too old to have much emotional connection to Peanuts TV specials (or the Rankin Bass holiday dreck of the same era), but these made me laugh, then look around to see if any Decent Human Beings were watching, and then laugh some more.

And, by the way, it's all well and good to have a First Amendment and to pen parodies of the beloved glurge you grew up on, but there are certain places one ought not to go, as Tom Spurgeon reports. Comicmix had the poor judgment to create an affectionate mashup of Star Trek and Dr. Seuss and has been duly slapped down.

Folks, you only have to remember three names: Walt Disney, the Olympic Committee and Dr. Seuss. Mess with them and you can expect nastygrams from real live lawyers.

And the Seuss estate is not some heartless villain: It only sues people who don't pay to distort and destroy his legacy.

Creating parodies of Seuss is like letting your cat wander in the country. You may get away with it, but don't be shocked and surprised when you don't. 

 

Something to debate when you should be working

First, here are a couple of holiday shopping tips in the form of lists of the Best Graphic Novels of 2016, one from Michael Cavna and a presumably more commercially oriented one from Amazon.

I snagged that latter list from Spurgeon and I hope he's got it linked to a commission for him, because he does nice work.

Meanwhile, however, there was a brief explosion on Facebook yesterday because of this posting about how we shouldn't use the term "Graphic Novel" because ... oh, who gives a damn?

Well, obviously, the people who keep this sort of thing going.

I'll admit, I've even used (gasp!) "graphic memoir" for books like "Maus" or "Rosalie Lightning" because they are non-fiction and I think that's an important distinction.

Beyond that, there are two reasons to define this type of work somehow:

First, I want to know that it's not all text.

The difference between a graphic novel and an all-text novel is hardly subtle, and it would be pretty damn stupid for writers to insist that everything be called a "script" whether it was going to be produced live on stage, filmed for theaters, recorded for radio or produced on video for television.

Second, I think readers -- consumers -- also deserve to know if a book is a stand-alone story with some literary intent or part of an ongoing tale of a costumed superhero or a gang of mismatched ne'er-do-wells in space.

One of the thousands of times this topic broke out, Eddie Campbell wrote this acerbic response, which I had already set aside for today when Friend-of-the-Blog Brian Fies referred to it in his own archived thoughts on the topic.

 

And then, not only by happenstance but with absolutely no intention of entering the discussion, Brian Crane popped in this Pickles this morning, which pretty much sums up my thoughts about people who argue over semantics when they ought to be hunched over a drawingboard.

Obviously, people can't spend all their time working, or, at least, it's not mentally and spiritually healthy to do so. And people who are deeply involved in their work will discuss it in their off-hours, particularly among those who share their interests.

But I have been in one of those conversations with Eddie Campbell (and his astonishingly well-qualified friend), and it was about plot and structure and characterization, not about what to call the results ferchrissake.

Which is why I trust his opinion about what to call the results, and -- inferring his intent from between the lines of that entertaining screed -- how very, very little it matters.

Unless you're ducking a deadline, in which case the conversation is very important and must not be neglected, for the good of artists everywhere. And audiences. And the future of creativity itself. And stuff.

“Some people have a way with words, and other
people...oh, uh, not have way.” ― Steve Martin

 

Comments

[Boise Ed]

If I were representing the Charles Schulz estate, I would sue the f out of Marciuliano or whoever did that Peanuts knockoff.

[Mike Peterson]

I'm very sure they've seen his parodies and Jeanne Schulz attends so many cartooning events that they've likely been in the same room, if not at the same table, multiple times.

It's a matter of perspective and part of that is that he's not making a free-standing book out of it, as the Seuss/Trek mashup was. Sense of humor aside, you can't sue every time you're parodied episodically. I know Mad Magazine has pissed off some people, and I'm sure SNL does all the time.