CSotD: O Cartoonists, Where Art Thou?
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Tried to take a break from politics today. Fat chance.
I've seen a couple of strip cartoonists post remarks about how it's getting hard to just make funny drawings when everything is on fire, and even this cheesy pun at Bizarro has a political base.
The problem is, how do you make jokes about ordinary, day-to-day life when nobody is living ordinary day-to-day lives?
In the '40s, cartoons weren't always about the war, but they didn't ignore it, either. It was part of daily life, so it was part of daily humor.
We're not at the point where it's impossible to make jokes about everyday life without including terrorism, but it won't take a whole lot more chaos to tip the balance and blend it into the mix.
Steve Benson suggests a world in which terrorist attacks are commonplace, but there are already parts of the world in which people assume vulnerability, and we'll catch up soon enough.
I like the style in which he draws his reader. A more cartoony character, or a character reacting with dismay, would deaden the point.
And it goes back further than the fact that kids who weren't old enough to remember 9/11 are now old enough to vote.
"Kids" in their 40s don't remember a time when you could get on an airplane without going through a metal detector.
We're already living in a world that assumes these things happen.
One day, strippers will draw gags about skateboarders slaloming through the protective bollards on every sidewalk and it will seem as normal and unremarkable as a gag about saggy bluejeans, because bollards will be as normal and unremarkable as parking meters and lamp posts and closed-circuit TV cameras and random searches.
Meanwhile, cartoonists are not the only people who have to decide where politics fits in their lives, but this is a blog about cartoons.
Win, Lose, Drew expresses Drew Litton's wish that we could keep politics out of football, and I like the idea of separating the two.
But, then again, if someone hadn't decided it was necessary to play the National Anthem before football games, maybe sports would simply be sports.
However, we've already declared football a center of patriotism, perhaps starting with the need to entertain people during halftime.
After all, you can't bring in marching bands without expecting a little John Philip Sousa and then out come the flags and, well, it kinda gets out of hand and now you're having Air Force flyovers and the term "Flag Football" takes on a whole other meaning.
So I agree with Drew that football should be football, but I disagree with the idea that one kind of patriotism is good and another kind is intrusive.
If you want to get the politics out of it, get the politics out of it completely.
Here's a political move I agreed with: The Jets refused to go along with the NFL's idea that playing football in the wake of 9/11 was good for morale.
Coach Herm Edwards stood up to critics, suggesting that, if they needed a sense of being together with other people, they go to church, not a football game.
I love Herm.
And that was a different time, because he was still able to get work.
Today's Soup to Nutz salutes Roberto Clemente on what would have been his 83rd birthday, had more important things not intervened.
Maybe the sports leagues could stop waving flags long enough to send a couple of relief flights over to Sierra Leone.
Or would that be too political?
So here's the thing:
Strip artists should not flatter themselves that silly gags are preserving national morale, though of course we shouldn't walk around under a cloud all day long.
A funny gag is a day-brightener even when there is no global crisis to be offset, and it's not just about national issues.
You never know when some reader has just ended a long marriage or buried a family member or lost a job or just had a really rotten day.
It's like the old story about starfish: You can't save them all, but it makes a difference to the ones you do.
And I got a guilty laugh out of today's Rhymes with Orange, because I had a DIY wedding but, no, my wife didn't do all the work.
I had to go buy a new suit and a pair of Frye boots, and I also had to drive up into the hills and hire the band, who lived in a pair of school buses.
I also had to address a lot of envelopes.
Well, not that many, since we didn't invite a lot of people.
But all she had to do was arrange for the church and the priest, order a cake, and make her wedding dress and buy the wine and then she and her aunt made all the little sandwiches and mixed the punch and decorated the church hall.
But she only had to address half the envelopes for the invitations, because I addressed the other half.
Which seamlessly leads to our …
Juxtaposition of the Day
This is how Ben and Betty came up on my GoComics feed this morning and I thought it was both funny and cool, because I'm like Liv in that I can't just lie there contemplating the heavens without thinking of other things.
But it's not my sense of duty. It's my ADD. Like Betty, I don't have a to-do list, but that doesn't mean I don't have things I should be doing.
Anyway, I laffed. And that's good.
Because here's your moment of zen
If you've never seen Preston Sturges's classic "Sullivan's Travels," skip this spoiler and go watch the whole movie, about a Hollywood director who decides he needs to stop making silly comedies and produce something deep and meaningful for the good of humanity.
For those who have already seen it, here's the part cartoonists need to remember:
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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