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March 28, 2006
Identity Crisis
Has Scott Stantis been reading Shrubville?
My second biggest complaint* with Prickly City is that Stantis can never seem to keep his characters straight. It happens on nearly a weekly basis - liberal coyote acts conservative, conservative neo-con tot acts like a liberal.
But this shouldn't come as any surprise. Stantis himself has admitted to not being a strict Republican - he's a "conservative." Although the definition of a conservative is itself confusing nowadays - are you a Reagan conservative? A McCain conservative? A George W. Bush conservative? For a group that makes fun of people on the left for having different opinions, they seem to be the ones who can't agree on how to spend peoples' tax money faster or the quickest way to cut taxes for the rich.
Take the immigration debate. Bush seems to be leaning liberal with wanting to allow illegal immigrants to stay in the country. However his motivation is definitely neo-conservative - he wants companies to have access to cheap labor.
(On a side note: I'm sorry, but I'm tired of hearing this "there are jobs Americans WON'T do so we need illegals." Yeah, our lawns didn't get mowed or our crops harvested for years before the Mexicans decided to cross our borders. Americans will do ANY job - that's what makes us great. Just pay us what we deserve - that's all we ask.)
So immigration, much like social security, how to deal with Iraq, how to deal with our port security, and a bevy of other issues are playing havoc with the right side of the aisle. There's a problem though: no matter what happens, they ALL support the president. The guy's never vetoed a bill - and the only one he threatened to veto was the one banning TORTURE. Remember this when you vote in the fall - your Republican candidates might try to distance themselves from W, but in the end they've all done exactly what he wanted them to do. Something Stantis hasn't been able to do with his own characters - stay on message, no matter what the costs to the American public.
Sorry, I got sidetracked there a bit. Back to Carmen and Winslow. As I've said before they're proxies for Stantis. The problem is he can't keep his own issues straight, so it comes through in the characters. Unfortunately, that doesn't really work in comics. What if Lucy started to let Charlie Brown kick the football? Or the kids in Family Circus started cursing? It wouldn't make any sense, and that's why people don't understand Winslow. Or Carmen. Or Prickly City in general.
Or maybe Stantis is just using the "Strawman" method of debate that our President loves so much. "Some people" accuse Winslow of not acting like a coyote - which might not have anything to do with his politics. Instead maybe Stantis thinks people are complaining because they can't tell if he's a coyote or a fox. Knowing Stantis, that's probably what's happening.
*First biggest complaint: it's not funny.
Comments
It's a good roundabout play on words that isn't patently offensive.
Then again, Family Circus has been known to be dark now and again.
Posted by: Sacki at March 28, 2006 04:06 PM
