Quantity is Job One

The best part about that classic Geico commercial -- aside from the number of times the camel says my name -- is that, however annoying he may be, the people trying to ignore him are apparently locked into work they don't enjoy. 

It's not like he's distracting them from something they want to be doing. 

Which means I could, instead, have led with today's Mr. Boffo and made something of the same point.

And if you are reading this on the sly at a work station, well, I'm watching the squirrels, the difference between watching the squirrels and watching the pigeons being that I don't have to watch the squirrels out of the corner of my eye, and, in fact, I can get right up and go out on the porch and watch them unapologetically. 

Howsoever, I'm not here to lord my semiretirement over anyone, but rather to say that, while I realize the world seems to be collapsing at the moment, I don't think it will collapse before tomorrow and so to hell with it, or, as Katy Scarlett O'Hara, the most white-privileged-white-girl in literature, would say, I'll just go crazy if I think about that now.

Difference between us being that I will be Melanie tomorrow.

But, for now, we'll let Mike Luckovich take a quick, brilliantly accurate swing at the dangling pinata ... 

And move on to less fraught issues. 

 

Juxtaposition of the Day

(Edison Lee)

(Rip Haywire)

Edison Lee is having a Star Trek fantasy episode, while Rip is trying to lure his not-so-faithful dog out of retirement, and they both manage to work a good slap in the (acting) chops into that final panel.

I have to give Edison the edge for daring, since he's playing to a niche audience that, just as they suspend disbelief in order to believe that everyone hopping sideways across the set while the camera tilts represents a Starship taking a mighty blast from the enemy, are equally willing to ignore certain thespianical shortcomings at the center of that set.

Though I may be unfair in assuming that Madonna's work in "Dick Tracy" was bad, since I have never been able to make it far enough into the movie to know, and I've made it farther into that movie than I ever got into "Brenda Starr."

I would hope it's obvious that I like comics, and that it's also fairly clear that I get a kick out of silliness and schlock, but there's a level of camp that works -- 1978's "Superman" being a prime example -- and then there's a self-conscious attempt at camp that fails, and I'd place Tracy and Starr in those categories.

Chuck Barris once noted that young men did very poorly on the Gong Show because they tried too hard to be funny, mostly by jumping around in silly costumes, while true camp emerged from people who began by having a grip on their own lives and then twisting it. 

And if you watch the movie made from his memoir, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," you'll see how straight-faced, droll absurdity is far funnier than people leaping around in silly costumes.

Which phrase I do not intend as a critique of the entire Marvel cinematic universe.

Although, if the Spandex slipper-boot fits ...

 

On a related note:

Wiley Miller both touches on a current thought and brings back some suppressed trauma this morning at Non Sequitur.

I remember, when I was aiming to be the JD Salinger of my generation, people who, with the best of intentions, would suggest I write a detective novel or sci-fi, as if an author were like a phonograph and could play whatever record was placed on the turntable: Jazz, classical, blues, rock.

However, a variant on this came from a well-established literary agent who, having read the manuscript of my collegiate novel, explained that what was currently selling was a new novel called "Jaws."

She wasn't suggesting I write it.

She was just pointing out what publishers were looking for, and leaving it up to me to decide where to take that nugget of information. 

What awakened the current-day connection was Big Nate, and I laughed at the difference between Francis's definition of a classic and the way Nate takes the concept.

A lot of strips are aimed at a general audience but accessible to kids, but this one reverses that: Big Nate is as much for kids as about them, and that's a rarity. 

Most strips aimed at a kid-audience are either simpleminded or edumacational and often both. 

But Lincoln Peirce -- who has been a middle school teacher -- knows his audience and Big Nate has naturally emerged as a middle school superstar.

"Naturally emerged" is huge, because a lot of publishers are lunging for hybrid novels for kids, and, while parents and librarians are similarly eager to find them, the junk-to-treasure ratio is about the same as it has always been for everything. 

 

Rabbits Against Magic notes a depressing trend in kid-lit, which is the "discovery" that kids like fart jokes.

I'll bet the publishers of Mad Libs were well aware of the words being filled in on those blanks. Well, no need to fill in the blanks anymore.

The discovery has inspired a whole segment of literature. Call it "cacagraphy."

The result has been a flood of PG-rated Mabel Syrup, because lazy, hackneyed commercial schlock wasn't unbearable enough. It needed to be mildly offensive as well.

 

And then Candorville tops it off as Lemont suggests a character named "Harbinger," which is not why Clyde told him to stop but it's why I will.

I recently edited a review of a children's book that included a character named "Erica Dickerson" and then another of a book set in the Kingdom of Vidalia.

It was like the authors were tromping through my office going "Mikemikemikemikemike -- Guess what day it is?" 

Goddammit, ya lazy hacks, if I have to take your stuff seriously, howzabout you do the same?

 

Comments

[parnellnelson]

I used to say that hidden inside every cartoonist was a 12 year old kid who was just dying to tell a fart joke. But now anybody can actually tell one any time anywhere, even on network TV. It's one more indicator that society as we know it is DOOMED!...unless I don my red, white and blue SuperSpandex 2XL costume and scare the hell outta everybody - I mean SAVE IT!

[Brad Walker]

Uh, Mike, you did see the previous Candorville, didn't you? The one that mentions Crisis on Infinite Earths, which featured Harbinger? She's a real DC character (although whether or not she's still canonical is anyone's guess). This is a riff on an existing story, not a lack of imagination -- not necessarily one, anyway.

[Mike Peterson]

I'm still appalled at the name, but somehow I had missed it yesterday -- the name, that is. I guess it lept out more in the context of Clyde being subjected to being told a dream.

I wouldn't have known it was a real character anyway -- I would have thought Darrin was making fun of stupid names, which is what I thought he was doing there.

Again, it's that matter of whether you can watch the cast hop across the set sideways and believe their ship was attacked. Names like "Harbinger" make it hard to suspend disbelief and ignore the wires.

[Brad Walker]

"Names like "Harbinger" make it hard to suspend disbelief and ignore the wires."

Then what would you think of Harbinger's co-conspirators, Pariah and the Monitor?

The storyline continues in today's Candorvile, BTW.

[Mike Peterson]

The Monitor? That kid from Funky Winkerbean?

[Brad Walker]

There's a school of thought that comic book names can be too obscure -- I'm thinking of "Reflecto," from LSH -- but at the opposite extreme are Inames like "Jade" and "Obsidian," from Young All-Stars.

Those last two are by Roy Thomas, who created a whole supergroup called "Anthem," with heroes named Rockets Redglare and Dawns Earlylight.

I don't think there's anything especially wrong with "Harbinger," "Pariah" and "Monitor." All three are very descriptive of their function, if not necessarily the powers they use to fulfill that function.

BTW, Marv Wolfman, who wrote Crisis on Infinite Earth, parodied his own work in Marvel's Mighty Mouse with Mices on Infinite Earths. The trio here were Hare-binger, Piranha and the Minotaur.