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September 30, 2006
Super Fuzz
So this is why Stantis slammed the brakes on the Republicrats storyline and tackled the oh-so-ever-"sexy" debate over fuzzy math? A joke about the budget? And it doesn't even make much sense - we'd have a federal budget, we just would know the actual numbers. Stantis tries to make that point, but uses his fuzzy writing skills to botch it.
Winslow is right though - our government is the master of fuzzy accounting when it comes to federal spending. According to Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tn), our national debt is closer to $49 trillion than $8.3 trillion and our deficit more like $716 billion compared to the $318 the feds are trying to sell us on. Sounds pretty amazing, huh? Hard to believe. But let's face it - this administration has lied about everything else, and considering their love of the almighty dollar I wouldn't put this past them. Remember, the war in Iraq is costing us about $200 million dollars A DAY. Heck, they've admitted that they overpaid Halliburton $1.4 BILLION dollars, yet they continue to give them contracts. Oh, and $8.8 BILLION dollars has simply gone missing over there. And yet people still trust W...
Who's to blame for all of this? Republicrats, silly. Of course that's just another name for Bush Republicans, of which Stantis is a member. Sure he can bitch and moan about how all of this isn't his fault - when he voted to re-elect Bush 2 back in 2004 he had no way of knowing that this President would launch us into a war based on lies, run up the national debt by giving his rich friends tax cuts, and spend more than any previous administration on things like pork for Republican districts and making sure corporations get every break possible.
Oh, wait, wasn't all of that clear in like 2003? I guess according to Stantis's fuzzy memory, none of that was clear until after it all started to suck, so he can now blame it on Democrats. What a dick.
Posted by The Furnace at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)
September 29, 2006
Strap on Those Helmets; Detour Ahead
Wow. It's almost as though Stantis were embarrassed at being completely schooled, taught, learned, spanked, mocked, and educated by Sacki's tremendous post of yesterday, and he called up the syndicate and begged them to discontinue his idiotic, go-nowhere Republicrat storyline and instead substitute a strip about the new new math.
How else to explain the sudden change-of-course? (Besides, of course, the fact that Stantis goes into every work day not having any idea what he's going to do, is incapable of plotting out and following through with a storyline, just spends his time surfing fox news dot com headlines for a clue as to what he should write about, and is a raving, foaming-at-de-mouf whacko jerkwad.)
So I got nothing today. New new math? I think Charles Schultz neatly summed-up the Great Math Debate by having Snoopy think aloud: "When all you have to count are the hours to suppertime, it doesn't matter whether you use 'old math' or 'new math'!"
So that just leaves the helmets and pads to focus on. Therefore:
September 28, 2006
Ripoff Van Winkle
Aw, poor Scott Stantis. He's apparently been asleep for awhile and just woke up to discover that he doesn't recognize his party. While he is able to rub away the crust that has formed around his eyes and scratch his rubby beard, he is as of yet unable to muster up the energy to throw his hands in the air and wave 'em like he just don't care.
There's this little-known scientific theory (hold on, don't bail out on me just yet) called evolution. You see, the Republican Party has evolved since that short period during which you were learned by your teacher in school. See that map above, all shiny red. Oooh. Shiny. Except for those damn liberal Northeasterners. Tax and spend. Spend and spread. Spread and fuck (men only). Tax spend donk. The thing is, that's a map of the vote for the 1932 presidential election; blue = Republican states, red = Democrat states.
In accepting the Republican presidential nomination in 1892, Benjamin Harrison wrote that "it is practically the duty of the educated and influential to help the ignorant and weak when possible."
Teddy Roosevelt said that "we wish to control big business so as to secure among other things good wages for the wage-workers and reasonable prices for the consumers. Wherever in any business the prosperity of the businessman is obtained by lowering the wages of his workmen and charging an excessive price to the consumers we wish to interfere and stop such practices. We will not submit to that kind of prosperity any more than we will submit to prosperity obtained by swindling investors or getting unfair advantages over business rivals."
Dwight Eisenhower wrote in 1954, "Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
Now those are all good, respectable, all-American sentiments and values which are embraced by Republicans and which the citizens of the greater Prickly City metropolitan complex must be thinking about when they complain about the loss of identity in the G.O.P.
Unless, of course, they're attention-addled and history-impaired and are merely longing for the glory days of six years ago, when their great and present leader, George Bush, gazed around a diamond-studded $800-a-plate crowd and commented on the wealth on display. "This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores," quipped the GOP standard-bearer. "Some people call you the elites; I call you my base."
Posted by Sacki at 12:00 AM | Comments (4)September 27, 2006
To absolutely zero fanfare, Shrubville celebrated its two-year anniversary on Monday. What started out as forum to vent pent-up anger over the unchecked conservative claptrap published under Stantis' byline in the funny pages has turned into a forum to vent pent-up anger over the unchecked conservative claptrap published under Stantis' byline in the funny pages.
Looking back over the non-evolution of Shrubville over the last two years, I see a lot of half-assed entries, a lot of lame jokes that are constantly repeated, a lot of meandering, pointless entries, and a lot of caricaturing the caricatures. But, of course, we're only as good as the material provided by Stantis.
As long as Stantis keeps spewing out the strips, we'll be here to answer him. On a daily basis. Until the end of time. If necessary. Right, Furnace? Right, Sacki? Right????
We are inspired on a daily basis to do it for you, dear Shrubville reader, who has found a safe haven for "Prickly City" love/hate on the internet.
And now without further ado and to no one's amusement, I present to you the first Shrubville entry ever from September 25, 2004:
Saturday, September 25, 2004
Brad & Jen
SYNOPSIS OF TODAY'S STRIP
Carmen, the Neo-Conservative Hispanic girl with no parents, wonders aloud how this country got to the point of worshipping celebrities. Winslow, the Liberal clown coyote, gets a message on his cell phone. Carmen discovers that Winslow subscribes to a Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston text message alert service.
CONSERVATIVE TALKING POINTS TOUCHED UPON
Liberals worship the Hollywood elite.
WHY IT'S FUNNY
Liberals are so silly that they need celebrities to tell them which way to vote! Conservatives don't subscribe to the cult of celebrity. Just ask Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Ron Silver, and Elizabeth Filarski Hasselbeck.
posted by CJo at 12:08 PM Comment (0)
Posted by CJo at 09:31 AM | Comments (3)September 26, 2006
Next Thing You Know, They'll Blame 9/11 Solely On Bill Clinton. Oh, Wait...
It's ALL yours, Stantis - deal with it.
Someone needs to teach Scott Stantis and the rest of the Republican whiners about a little word called "responsibility."
Now that things are horrible in this country, it's obviously not their fault - some bizarro aliens (I'm not sure if they're illegal or not) have snuck in and somehow stolen their party. They're a hybrid of the "drunken-spending Democrats" and...well, I guess Republicans in general. It's hard to tell from Carmen's stance.
That's what's so inadvertently hysterical about Stantis's storyline for this week. He's too much of a pussy to admit that the Republican plan for governing simply doesn't work - oh no, the Democrats are somehow to blame for EVERYTHING that's going wrong. Even though they don't control any of the branches of government. Nope - they somehow corrupted the Republican party with their eerie mind control powers. Maybe Wizzo (I think he was a cabinet member under Carter) used his magic stone and said "Dooo-dee-dooo-dee-do" to the conservatives and made them his liberal zombie puppets.
So what makes the people in charge "Republicrats?" Well so far Stantis has said it's because of unchecked government growth and drunken spending, so that means they're not "true" Republicans.
Why is it that most Republicans have a warped memory system? Are they born that way? Seems to me that the government grew in leaps and bounds under Reagan, primarily military spending. And he's the one that ran up a huge deficit, not Jimmy. But no - in the minds of guys like Stantis Reagan could do no wrong.
There's are reasons why the government is so huge under Bush. The big one is that he lost so many jobs when he took office that early on the only way he could say he made jobs was by creating them in the federal government. And don't give me the "how did he do that?" response like he's an innocent - he's the one who gave the tax breaks to the corporations so they could ship our CAREERS - not jobs, CAREERS - overseas. Hard to replace a career making automobiles with a job working at Wal-mart. For months on end we'd hear about how the economy created a few hundred thousand jobs - the reality was they weren't in the private sector, they were at the federal level. But of course you won't hear that from the Republicans - the economy is just cheeky, thank you. Ahem.
And how is it so cheeky? Because Bush ran up the deficit. Not by spending it on social programs or on the cities and states like the Democrats are known to do (you know, little things like fixing Social Security and Medicare), but instead by giving tax cuts to his rich buddies. Yup, that sure is a liberal value, isn't it?
These aren't Republicrats - they're Republicans through and through. But now that we see they're a miserable failure when they're in power without any checks and balances, they want to blame it all on somebody else. Please, Mr. Stantis, explain to us what a "real Republican" wants. What would he do differently? Not give tax cuts to the wealthy? That's a fundamental element of your trickle down economics. Not expand the government? If you want to "keep us safe," you have to expand it (sure you don't have to do it by hiring cronies and incompetents, but you can't blame Democrats for that), not to mention in order to figure out ways to benefit corporations (somebody needs to rewrite the law and help them get every advantage possible).
The right wingers have done a magnificent job of convincing Americans that Democrats are evil incarnate, and that everything bad in government is their fault. Even when they control EVERYTHING, if something goes wrong you can never blame Republicans. How, I have no idea. And Stantis will never tell us. Because he's not even responsible enough to make a coherent funny comic strip, much less admit that his party doesn't know how to govern - just how to make themselves wealthier and more powerful at the expense of everyone else.
But maybe you're on to something, Stantis. We shouldn't call them Republicans anymore - that soils their golden memories of their twisted reality. Let's call them Neo-Conservatives. Of Fascists. Either one works for me.
September 25, 2006
Aw, poor Scott Stantis. He's apparently been asleep the last six years. As he blinks away the crust that has formed around his eyes and rubs his scratchy beard, he muses about the "unchecked growth of the federal government." Yes, yes; that must be the problem with the world today. The "unchecked growth of the federal government." He'll never be able to go back to sleep now, not with thoughts of the "unchecked growth of the federal government" flowing through his head. Poor Scott Stantis. He can't get back to sleep. There's a wet spot. There's two+ years worth of GOP ejaculate all over the sheets. You've messed your bed, Scott, and now you must lie in it.
Posted by CJo at 08:37 AM | Comments (1)September 24, 2006
Flyboy (Plus Bonus Rant)
Blah. Stantis had a leftover idea about Winslow not being able to fly because he had to present photo ID and turn over his lip balm before take off. Remember when that was a big deal over a month ago? Maybe Stantis does more flying than you'd think a comic strip artist would do, because he sure has a problem with the airlines trying to keep us safe from another terrorist attack. I do think it's funny that Stantis can't reference taking off your shoes and your belt because Winslow wears neither.
But really today is just another half-assed effort. Yet again he falls back on toilet humor with a "cavity search." It's as if when I read Prickly City lately I can see that there's a germ of an idea, but Stantis doesn't even try to develop it. I mean we don't even see a checkpoint or some burly airport security guard frisking Winslow - wouldn't that be a funny image? Or heck, have Carmen pretend to be the screener. Winslow would rush up all excited wearing his wings, but nope - she's put up a checkpoint and won't let him pass until he makes it through her improvised x-ray machine, which is made from a cut out refrigerator box. Then just as he makes it through, she tells him he can't fly. He accuses her of profiling, and she says no - it's because everybody knows coyotes can't really fly.
Okay, maybe that's not great, but at least it would be something different than what we see every single day - Carmen and Winslow standing in the desert talking. I know he's only got so much room to work with, but if he didn't fill up half the screen with sky and rock he'd be able to actually draw something funny.
I'm not going to put on the Future Goggles today, because I'm actually worried about what's happening in this country and I doubt Stantis is going to touch any of the real stories that are effecting us right now. He's not going to talk about President Bush actually having SECRET PRISONS. Think about that. Bush also admitted that we have terror SUSPECTS - not convicted criminals, not even people who have been CHARGED with a crime - that we've been holding for YEARS. And now the "Renegade Republicans" have once again rubber-stamped what Bush wants - and this time it's nothing all that big, just TORTURE. I'm sorry for all the caps, but come on - does this really happen in America?
Think about it: if your neighbor has a problem with you, he can call the feds and say you're Al Qaeda. Let's say the guy you buy a newspaper from every morning is from Afghanistan, and he's on the terror watch list because he has a similar last name to a real terrorist. You get "detained" as a terror suspect because of your "connections to terror organizations." You're flown to Iraq, then taken over the border to Syria (you know, the latest member of the Axis of Evil that we want to invade) where you're tortured for days on end. Plunged into water until you think you're going to drown. Forced to stand naked on a concrete floor for hours, even days on end. Feeding tubes might be jammed down your nose (no, not a typo). And then the beatings resume. They don't hit you hard enough that you die, but odds are you end up needing medical treatment for your wounds. This happens EVERY DAY FOR MONTHS. MAYBE YEARS. The whole time you're never told what crime you're charged with, and you never see any evidence against you.
Then one day they open your cell door, shove you outside, and say, "You're free to go." Just like that, it's over. Years of your life gone. Your life ruined - your family didn't know where you were, you've lost your house because you obviously never paid your bills, you've lost your job, everything you've worked for is gone. All because someone thought a guy you talked to once had a name similar to that of a guy on a terror watch list.
Think something like that couldn't happen to you? Talk to Maher Ara - he'll tell you that it can. And the scenario I laid out is a composite of other inmate stories that I've read about - anyone and everyone is a suspect in this country, and apparently we're now guilty until proven innocent (but there's no point in trying to prove your innocence, because you'll never see the evidence against you).
There are 14,000 terror suspects we're holding now. We don't know how many have been charged with crimes. We don't know if they'll ever be charged, or if they'll ever be released. How many people have been tortured, have been killed, all because of 19 men with box cutters?
I know I'm being a buzz kill this morning, but is this the United States of America we know and love? Invading countries based on lies? Illegally spying on us? Calling anyone who disagrees with the President a terrorist?
I wish I could say that electing Democrats in a month and a half would be the answer. It's not. They just rubber stamped Bush's torture plans right along with the Republicans. None of them are standing up to Bush - they're all too busy figuring out ways to lose their elections. And even if they did win, the current Congress has done everything in its power to make Bush the most powerful President ever. If Bush wants to torture, he will. If he wants to spy on us, he will. If he wants to invade Iran, he will. And the Democrats, and the rest of us Americans, are powerless to stop him.
Is this how an average German citizen felt in the early 1930s?
And am I the only one that feels this way?
September 23, 2006
As Grampa Simpson Would Say: Bitch, Bitch, Bitch
When I was a teenager in the mid-80s Sony came out with the Watchman, a handheld black and white television you could take anywhere. Now I loves me some TV - heck back in those days I could tell you what show was on what channel at what time. My family would take vacation down in Austin, Texas and we would drive down there. For the unfamiliar, that's a 22 hour drive. 22 hours of family chat is enough to make anybody go mad, so I begged and pleaded to get a Watchman so I'd have something to do. Mom said if I saved enough I could get one, but unfortunately the Watchman was pretty pricey. I ended up settling for another portable television that didn't even have a name brand on it and was roughly the size of a cinder block. But gosh dangit, I had my TV.
Now back then of course there was no such thing as cable or satellite TV, so I'd have to wait until we passed by a town big enough to have its own television station. And that would mean getting only a few minutes of watchable programming by the time I got the dial set to the right station and the image clear enough to make out what was going on. But man, were those few minutes sweet. I still have that "mini" TV in my closet. It's a piece of crap and I'd be lucky if I could pay a pawn shop to take it off my hands, but at the time it was the greatest invention in the world to a teenage kid hungry to watch a little TV when he wasn't supposed to be able to.
Prickly City brought back those memories this morning. Stantis is once again bitching about technology, this time that we can watch TV anywhere we want, be it on our cell phones or when we're pumping gas. So what? Is that a bad thing? Ever since we figured out how to broadcast Uncle Milty people have loved television. We've gone from a single black and white in the living room to TVs in every room to having TVs in our phones. But why is that bad? It allows us to watch the news, be entertained, and not have to sit there looking like dolts on the train while we wait for the next stop.
I guess I'm just not a bitter old man like Stantis. I wonder if he sits out on his lawn in his rocking chair with a shotgun in his lap yelling at those young whippersnappers to stay off his property. I mean yeah, the idea of a guy watching TV in a port-a-potty is silly, and toliet humor can elicit a giggle (and that's what it is - don't fool yourself - if he's not taking a crap, and is sitting in church, it's not the same kind of humor). But for pete's sake, you've got enough going on in the world of politics that we don't need to hear you bitching about how the world is passing you by. What, would you rather we live in caves? I thought you were scared to death of those guys and their boxcutters.
And was this a follow-up to yesterday's "Are they still watching?" strip? What was he talking about there? The government spying on us? Reality TV? Once again, Stantis scribbles down an idea and we're supposed to figure it out for him.
Maybe it's for the best having Stantis whine about TV instead of tackling real issues, like President Bush admitting we have secret prisons and have been holding accused terrorists without charges for years. Oh, and we're TORTURING THEM. And luckily enough the "Rebel Republicans," who are nothing of the sort, have just given Bush the power to continue torturing them. Add in that he's already illegally spying on us, lies us into war, and is planning on invading yet another country based on lies, and I'm starting to think that this is how the Germans must have felt in the 1930s.
And even if they did have television back then it wouldn't have mattered, since the media would have done what Mighty Leader told them to do. I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.
PS - What's the deal with Carmen on the mountain top? Is she supposed to be Moses or something? Weird. I'm telling you, she should just buy a soap box for these little speeches.
Posted by The Furnace at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2006
N O
September 20, 2006
A = B, B = C, A ≠ C
"This isn’t a matter of setting the bar too high; it’s a matter of securing the basic structure of our freedom - which is the rule of law.
"No man or woman, no matter how highly placed, no matter how effective a communicator, no matter how gifted a manipulator of opinion or winner of votes, can be above the law in a democracy. That is not a counsel of perfection. That is a rock-bottom, irreducible principle of our public life.
"There’s no avoiding the issue before us, much as I wish we could. We are, in one way or another, establishing the parameters of permissible presidential conduct.
"In creating a presidential system, the framers invested that office with extraordinary powers. If those powers are not exercised within the boundaries of the rule of law...that president must be removed from office.
"We cannot have one law for the ruler and another law for the ruled. This was once broadly understood in our land. If that understanding is lost or if it becomes seriously eroded, the American democratic experiment and the freedom it guarantees is in jeopardy. That and not the fate of one man, or one political party, or one electoral cycle is what we’re being asked to vote on today.
"In casting our votes we should look not simply to ourselves, but to the past and to the future. Let’s look back to Bunker Hill, Concord, Lexington. Let’s look across the river to Arlington Cemetery where American heroes who gave their lives for the sake of the rule of law lie buried. And let us not betray their memory.
"Let’s look to the future, to the children of today who are the presidents and members of Congress of the next century. And let’s not crush their hope that they too will inherent a law-governed society."
Liberty or security...
Sounds like that shrill bitch Hilary. No, that's not it?
Wait, must be that troop-hating hack Dick Durbin. Not him either?
Definitely Harry Reid then. What, wrong again?
If it's not Pelosi I give up. Okay, I quit, who's talking that smack about Bush's abuse of powers and contravening the laws of the land?
Henry Hyde?!? You've got to be kidding right? Oh, you are kidding! Sticking one cock in one mouth is for shame, but sticking many fingers up many asses is for freedom. If you believe there have only been "3,000 years of history," I suppose you might think that way.
F U Troop
Good (glowing) god, what a mess today's strip is.
Is he blaming Bush or the CIA?
It sounds like he's blaming the CIA. "These are the same guys who swore the case for WMDs was a slam dunk." Of course, George Tenet's widely reported "slam dunk" comment has all-but been debunked. But, you know, Stantis and his friends will try forevermore to paint the Debaqacle [sic] in Iraq as an "intelligence failure," shifting blame from the shoulders of those truly responsible.
But then at the end he has Winslow say something about "wishing for Teddy Roosevelt, but we end up with F Troop." That's got to be a clear swipe at Bush & Co., right?
Ah, who knows. Frankly, who cares. Who on earth -- besides us -- is reading Prickly City on Wednesday anyway. He can't build momentum. Suri Cruise, Mini-Clinics, CIA secret prisons -- all within the span of three days.
It seems like he went into the week based on trumped-up charges with no clear plan and no exit strategy. Let's see if he has the firm resolve to make it to Sunday.
Posted by CJo at 07:53 AM | Comments (2)September 19, 2006
At Least It's Not a Week of TomKat
Apparently Stantis was reading the Wall Street Journal last month. They ran a story on mini-clinics - those small doctor's offices that are now being built into stores and malls so people can go there to get a quick check up instead of waiting for weeks to get into a regular clinic. Here's the link, but it won't do you any good unless you're a subscriber (which I'm not, so I looked at this entry on a blog for a summary of the story).
I guess this is just one more terrible horrible advancement in our society that Stantis hates so much. I'll bet he protested when drug stores and grocery stores combined decades ago - how dare they sell my drugs next to the Twix bars! Of course now everyone accepts that it's a really good idea. And personally I think this is a great idea, especially if it costs half as much as going to a regular clinic and right after walking out I can drop off my Rx, go buy groceries, pick up my drugs, and go home. Sure beats the three trips I'd have to take all over town that Stantis wants me to make.
For some odd reason Stantis thinks the guys who work at these mini-clinics want to sexually molest him. The less said about that, the better. Although a lot of people would argue that the health care companies sure like to rape people (figuratively, of course - not like that sicko Stantis implies).
So really Scott you're the only one who's going to resist this. Embrace the future. It's really not that bad. I know that you and the Beav want things to be like they were back in the 50s, but let it go. I'm sorry, but I don't hear a lot of other people complaining that they can buy their Tylenol one aisle over from the diapers and another aisle over from the shampoo, the whole while my drugs are being dispensed in the corner. Or maybe you don't like the idea of sick people being around your fresh veggies. Um, newsflash: they already are. Unless the spinach is what's making them sick in the first place.
Posted by The Furnace at 08:13 AM | Comments (2)September 18, 2006
Fauxtograph -- I Don't Want Your, Fautxograph -- I Don't Need Your
For someone with such a severe distaste for celebrity culture and influence, Stantis takes seemingly every opportunity to drop names and trends in his little stupid strips. If he's so anti-celebrity shouldn't he just ignore these people like the rest of us?
I suppose it's similar to the evanchristicals who simply can't exist in this world if a black woman bares her nipple-covered breast on television. If I were them I would simply CHANGE THE CHANNEL, GO EAT THE BODY OF JESUS, SIP FROM THE CUP OF JESUS' BLOOD, and BASK IN THE GLOW OF GOD'S GLOWING GLOW. I wouldn't sit around and write letters to the FCC with one hand while jerking myself off with the other.
Posted by CJo at 07:53 AM | Comments (2)September 17, 2006
Geez, It's Like He Heard Democrats Call Fox News "Faux News"
Ah yes, let's go back to the first week of August 2006. Israel and Hezbollah were in the midst of blowing each other to pieces and the fear was that we were on the brink of World War 3. A photographer for Reuters submitted doctored photos of the conflict, one showing additional smoke after an Israeli bomb hit Lebanon and another showing an Israeli jet dropping three flares instead of the one it actually dropped. Yes, it was a HUGE scandal, for all of about two minutes. Why? Because let's face it - odds are the photographer wanted his pics to look more dramatic than everyone else's, and Reuters immediately pulled all of the pics the guy had sold to them and people went back to worrying about the real story - you know, that whole "war" thing.
But Stantis can't let something like that go. Oh no - everyone must be held accountable for this misdeeds, especially a "biased" news organization like Reuters (yeah, I know, I haven't heard that before either but hey - most Republicans think the truth has a liberal bias). So he doctors up his own pic showing Carmen partying with the President of France at a Wham! reunion concert in Iceland.
Ha?
You can just see the gears turning in Stantis's head:
What can I have Carmen doing that would just be hysterical and so totally not like her? Well, she has to be doing something with a French guy, because French people are stupid. I mean geez, they tried to keep us from invading Iraq! God, it's like they knew Saddam didn't have ties to 9/11 and didn't have WMDs. Idiots. We sure showed them.
What else? Well, I'm around 40 years old, so when I was hitting my prime all of the girls loved Wham! and I hated them because they were obviously gay and I was still coming to terms with my sexuality. I know - they're having a reunion show and Carmen and her French friend can be there.
What's a funny country? Iceland! Oooh, what's that one city there? Reykjavik! That's got the "comedy K" sound, so that'll work.
But I need a punchline. What did Toby say back in August when this happened? Something about what they should call them...faux-tographs! Perfect. God, I'm the best comic strip artist ever. Now I'm going to go listen to my Toby Keith records as I hop in my SUV and go salute the flag, because I'm more patriotic than you.
And there you have it: the anatomy of a "gag." Maybe some people think the image of Wham! with the President of France if funny, I dunno. Me, it didn't make me chuckle. I guess mainly because this is a joke that he could have done back in mid-August - you know, when it was timely.
But I think Stantis has a point. We shouldn't let people in the media get away with publishing something that's false. We should force them to admit their mistakes and never let them forget.
With that in mind, I'm demanding that Scott Stantis publish an apology stating that no Democrats ever took money from Jack Abramoff, and in fact Abramoff persuaded his clients to donate LESS money to Democrats - so Stantis's claim that Dems are just as guilty as the corrupt Republicans were flat-out wrong.
But that would just be vindictive of me, since Stantis called his fat Howard Dean a liar over the issue months ago. Oh, wait, the Abramoff scandal? Turns out that IS still relevant: Republican Senator Bob Ney just pleaded guilty to his dealings with the convicted lobbyist, and implicated Republican Senator Mel Reynolds in their dealings. And nary a mention of any Democrats, because they had nothing to do with Abramoff.
I'll be expecting your apology in a timely manner, Mr. Stantis. Which for you will probably be next December. December 2007, that is.
September 16, 2006
What I Learned From 9/11
(at least President Bush learned how to read a children's book)
It's appropriate where Carmen's standing today as she gives her little speech, although I wish it was shaped more like a soapbox or a high horse.
You see Stantis, via Little Miss Priss, seems to think that we Americans all need to be reminded of the "lessons" we learned on 9/11. Maybe Scott should have watched Keith Olbermann before throwing Carmen up on that rock and acting as if what she was saying was important. Instead, she's just a real...well, prick.
Let's take a look at these "lessons" we've learned, shall we?
"True Heroism"
Yes, we learned that men and women will run into harm's way in order to save others, and then work day and night to help clear Ground Zero in hopes of getting our lives back to normal. And we also learned that our government would lie about the air conditions there, sentencing tens of thousands of men and women to shortened lives thanks to the damage done to their lungs. Thanks, Christine Todd Whitman, for teaching us the lesson that our government has no problem endangering its own people to get what it wants.
"Staunch resolve."
Stantis keeps using this word "resolve" as if it means something that the Republicans have when it comes to the war on terror but the Democrats don't. Um, who had Osama Bin Laden cornered in Tora Bora AND LET HIM GO? Was Bush "resolved" to just not try to catch the worst mass murder in US history? Actually, yes, we learned that lesson this week. Resolve does not mean to strip away the rights of innocent Americans in some misguided attempt at "catching the bad guys." The sad fact is that if these Republicans had this staunch resolve in the first 8 months of 2001 they could have very well prevented 9/11. How many warnings, how many PDBs did they receive telling them something bad was going to happen? I can assure you it was more than the number of times Dick Cheney's super-aweseome terrorist task force met, because that number was zero.
"Open debate over the meaning of civil liberties..."
Is this a joke? There is no open debate - either you approve of Bush's illegal spying program and imprisoning of terror suspects in secret prisons, or you want the terrorists to win. It was just this past week that House leader John Boehner asked, "I wonder if they're more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people." THIS is debate? No, the reality is that the Republicans want you to believe they're strong on terror while the Democrats want your family to be killed by the bad guys. As for civil liberties, I'm sorry, but Bush has all of the tools he needs to spy on the bad guys. Once again, since Stantis is obviously one of the idiots who doesn't get it, WE WANT TO SPY ON THE TERRORISTS. All we ask is that you get a warrant, and the way FISA works is that you can spy on them all you want - just get a warrant within the next few days explaining WHY you're spying on them. Because let's face it: can we really trust this President without any oversight? Did you hear the part about secret prisons? I really wish the Republicans had learned how to openly debate civil liberties - instead of violating them daily.
"...and patriotism."
Is he serious? Ladies and gentleman, Scott Stantis believes that we Americans can now have an open debate about PATRIOTISM in this country. How many times has he himself said that Democrats want to hug the terrorists? Fuck you, Stantis. You haven't learned a damn thing about patriotism. You can wrap yourself in the flag all you want and act like you're somehow more patriotic than I am, but the reality is you're pulling that flag over your head because you're too damned scared living in Bush's world that the big bad terrorists are gonna come gitcha. Coward.
"It reminds us of how precious Americans can be to one another."
A man who spends his days telling us how unpatriotic and how weak and how much we hate America and love the terrorists is saying how precious we are to one another.
Mr. Stantis, it seems as though you have learned NOTHING from the events of 9/11. And that's a real shame, seeing as you're one of the few who actually has a soapbox he hops up on every day and you could use it as a way to unite us, not divide us. I guess that's just one more thing you have in common with a President that failed to protect us on that day, and who fails to serve all of us as the Commander in Chief every day he's in office.
The lesson I've learned is that the Republican party will politicize a tragic day and the sacrifice of thousands of Americans in order to achieve their goals. They'll use it as an excuse to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. They'll use it as an excuse to illegally spy on us. To open secret prisons and hold men without charges for years. To argue that we should gut the Geneva Conventions so we can torture them. They'll use 9/11 to act as if somehow - despite not securing our borders, despite refusing to spend money to inspect containers coming into our ports, despite invading an unrelated country with no plan for victory and no exit strategy where the terrorists numbers are now growing thanks to them - they're more capable of defending this country than Democrats.
And I've learned that an unfunny comic strip artist will use 9/11 as a day when he can preach to us about how his side is "resolved" to win, while the Dems are "flummoxed" as to how to treat the terrorists and how they'd rather hug them instead.
In other words, I've learned that Scott Stantis hasn't learned anything from 9/11.
September 15, 2006
Re: Solved
Let me tell you what really flummoxes me about the resolution of today's published edition of the daily comic strip "Prickly City." The shirts of the two main characters, Carmen, the 8-year-old neo-con tot who lives in a faith-based homeless shelter, and Winslow, the loveable liberal coyote clown, are imprinted with a message that makes not a whole heckuva lotta sense to my eyes. The message on the shirts of Carmen and Winslow states "9/11 + 5." A couple of points on that, if you will indulge me.
Point 1: Today's date, the date of publication for the daily comic strip "Prickly City," is September 15. The common abbreviation for that would be 9/15. If we are to believe the shirts of the two main characters, Carmen and Winslow, however, it is September 16 (9/11 + 5). Perhaps this strip was published a daily earlier than it should have been, or perhaps this is a foreshadowing of the most fucking awesome goddamn PC strip in the history of the comics pages 3Var!, and it will drop, as the kids say, tomorrow. I look forward to checking in tomorrow with the Furnace to see how we reacts to what promises to be the greatest creation by human hands since Punch and Judy.
Point 2: As a mathematical equation, 9/11 + 5 = 5.818. What is the significance of this number? A cursory Google search reveals that there are approximately 358,000 website references to that number on the internet. There are approximately 206 images that correspond to that number, also. The best that I can tell, however, this mysterious .581 is a nod to the slugging percentage of Roger Maris in 1960 - the year prior to his then record-breaking homerun season.
So, in summary, taking a little from Point 1 and a little from Point 2, adding a dash of Future Goggles, and mixing in a large dollop of talking out of my ass, I believe that tomorrow is the debut of a long stretch of horrible PC comic strips about steroids in sports and the dopers who dope. Oh yeah, and FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE.
Posted by Sacki at 12:00 AM | Comments (1)September 13, 2006
Dancing from Beyond the Grave
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I spent last night flipping between "Celebrity Fear Factor" featuring G. Gordon Liddy's zombie corpse getting dunked repeatedly in water and then stuffed in a pod with crickets, and the oft-cited in Prickly City "Dancing with the Stars" featuring Tucker Carlson stumbling around the dance floor like G. Gordon Liddy's zombie corpse smiling like a schoolgirl on a swing. I bring this up for two reasons: 1) these are some of the heroes of the modern American conservative movement, and 2) I'M CRANKY.
So imagine my reaction today when Stantis ridicules everyone's favorite liberal, Winslow, for only learning the following "lessons" from 9/11:
Take off your shoes
Hand over your nail clippers
Something about Chapstick
This from a guy who three days ago published a political cartoon on what "we've" learned in the five years since 9/11:
So I'm not sure what he's doing here. On one hand he makes a grand statement about us all. On the other hand he finds a convenient way to smack around Winslow. On one foot he dances a drunkard's jig. On the other foot he stumbles around like G. Gordon Liddy's zombie corpse.
Posted by CJo at 08:25 AM | Comments (7)September 12, 2006
The Stantis Monopoly
Sometimes I wonder if I'm devoting too much of my time to writing about Prickly City. Today's strip is a perfect example. I could pick it apart, frame by frame, and analyze why it's simply unfunny. There is no joke here. There is no sensible punchline. There is no funny.
In writing that above paragraph, I'm convinced that I'm spending more time thinking about Prickly City than creator Scott Stantis is.
Today's "joke" reminds me of the South Park episode where we find out that Family Guy (which is, somehow, even unfunnier than Prickly City) is written by manatees who simply push "joke balls" into a shoot and those balls form a bit. Today's balls would be "Homeland Security," "Dancing With the Stars," and "Karl Rove." Obviously none of these have anything to do with each other. But there it is - sitting there, waiting for you to laugh because apparently the image of Karl Rove ballroom dancing is supposed to be funny. It's not, especially considering that Karl Rove helped to out an undercover CIA agent and still has security clearance in the White House. Not to mention it was just announced that he's about to launch the most aggressive smear campaign in the history of politics to help the Republicans win in November.
To me the obvious joke here is that Carmen is upset with Homeland Security because they couldn't prevent her loverboy Tucker Carlson from getting on Dancing. Why wasn't that obvious to Scott Stantis, a guy who gets paid to write this strip?
September 11, 2006
I Remember
I'm not going to hammer the what up his what today. He found a decent way to remember The Day and he's sticking with it. There's nothing wrong with that.
At least it's a more respectful tribute than his 9/11/04 strip in which he complained about the DMV:
September 10, 2006
Looking Backward To Look Forward
Stantis finally runs the Bob Thaves tribute. RIP Mr. Thaves.
And with that being the case, Future Goggles!
* Of course Monday will be a tribute to the victims of 9/11. If we're lucky it'll be silent, and Carmen won't say that it's a good thing we invaded Iraq to avenge their deaths.
* The biggest news of last month for me was the story that Bush finally admitted that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Yeah, most Americans (well, the smart ones anyway) have known for a while now this is the case. And it was just this past Friday that the Senate proved there was definitely no connection. But shouldn't this have been a monster story that everyone is talking about? THE main reason we went to war in Iraq - along with WMDs - WAS A LIE. Don't give me this nonsense of "bad intelligence." These guys knew going in Saddam didn't have anything to do with 9/11 (since they were planning the invasion BEFORE 9/11) and that he didn't have any WMDs, and we finally get the President to admit it and it's a blip on the "liberal" media's radar. I'd say that Stantis could have Winslow rubbing it in Carmen's face, but she'd probably pull a Rick Santorum and say there really were WMDs and that Saddam is Osama in a fake beard wearing lifts in his shoes.
* In a story I'm sure Stantis won't mention, a federal judge dropped the terror charges against "infamous dirty bomber" Jose Padilla. This case has always fascinated me, and is the perfect example of how Bush and the Republicans have no clue how to fight the war on terror. Padilla (who, if you're in the government of the media, has his last name pronounced "pa-dill-ah" - so he sounds more Muslim - yet it's actually pronounced "pa-dee-yah," since he's actually of Puerto Rican descent. And he was born in Brooklyn) was arrested in 2002. Let me type that again. He was arrested in 2002 for allegedly plotting a terror plot. It's now four years later and he's scheduled to go to trial NEXT YEAR. But not for the terror charges - no no no. That's why this story is so important, yet it was just another blip on the media's radar last month. If Stantis did do anything with this story, it would be to have Carmen blame the "liberal activist judges" for letting him get away with it. Not the government arresting a guy and holding him for four years without a trial. Oh, and without any proof that he actually committed the crime. "Speedy trial" my tuckus.
* Scientists (or "the evil god-haters" as the Religious Righties - and our government - refer to them) decided that Pluto isn't a planet. Watch for Carmen and Winslow to be standing on a rock at night talking about this topic and making an unfunny joke. What, I have no idea, other than it won't be funny and it'll probably feature "Uranus."
* Now that Cynthia McKenna-McKinney is out of the spotlight, who in the world will Stantis make fun of? How about Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, who ruled that Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping was unconstitutional. The rightie blogosphere went ape scat over this decision - she's a smelly stinky liberal activist judge who wants the terrorists to win, blah blah blah. One more time, for the stupid Republicans in the back: WE WANT TO SPY ON TERRORISTS TOO. JUST GET A FRICKIN' WARRANT. You don't even have to get the warrant BEFORE you do it! All we ask is that within a few days - hell, a few weeks - you check with a judge to make sure it's okay. Here, let me introduce you to a word we haven't heard at all from this President or his Congress: OVERSIGHT. Newly-liberal Winslow will brag that Bush can't illegally spy on us anymore, Carmen will accuse him of loving terrorists and wanting to hug them, and then we'll see that Karl Rove has been spying on them all along without a warrant.
* Ah and let us not forget the HUGE story of last month: the JonBenet Ramsey case. Stantis will get on his high horse and slam the media for jumping to conclusions. You know, like that at first they blamed the parents, then John Mark Karr, and we now know they were all innocent. Yeesh, what's next? We find out that the media (and our government) jumped to the conclusion that Iraq had WMDs and ties to 9/11?
I wish Stantis would spend the whole week paying tribute to real artists like Bob Thaves instead: then we wouldn't have to deal with his warped view on politics AND he could rip off more jokes from better comic strippers.
September 09, 2006
Maybe If She Left Him For Monica Lewinsky
In the past I've said that at times Scott Stantis reminds me of a child learning how to ride a bike without training wheels for the first time. You get him steady, he starts to pedal, you let go, he goes a few feet, then CRASH! he's in the ditch. Today is another example of that.
The set up is fine: Winslow breathlessly asks Carmen about the Kate Hudson/Chris Robinson break up...that was first reported August 14th.
(Sidenote: dude, I know you're going to be a few weeks behind, but nearly a month? And it's celebrity news? All you had to do was say, "Hey, did you see what Paris Hilton did?" and it would have been timely any day of the year.)
Carmen responds with a blank stare. Winslow knows why: thanks to her pure hatred of all technology, she's clueless about what's in the news. She says no - she just doesn't care.
And then the crash in the ditch - this line from Winslow:
"And you call yourself a wonk? Ha!"
Google time. Because the only time I've heard the term "wonk" recently was in reference to the liberal (well, formerly liberal) blogger The Wonkette. What does Wikipedia have to say?
Wonk has several possible meanings.
*Wonk (colloquial American English) was originally a 1960s slang word applied to an excessively studious person (equivalent to "grind" or "nerd"). The origins of the term are obscure. It has been described as a simple reversal of "know," linked to an obscure Old English word, and attributed to Royal Navy slang for a learned but inexperienced midshipman.
*Policy wonk, presumably from the above, is someone knowledgeable about and fascinated by details of government policy and programs.
*Wonk, a character from "The Adventures of Wonk" by Muriel Levy with illustrations by Kiddell-Monroe. Published by Ladybird Books in the 1940s these children's classics are now extremely rare. Wonk was a creature best described as a cuddly Koala-like bear who got himself into all sorts of trouble. Surviving copies of the Wonk books seem to be extremely fragile, perhaps due to paper shortages during the Second World War.
Okay, we can toss that last one (unless Carmen is a koala). Winslow is talking about celebrities, not politicians, so number two is out. That leaves number one. Which means he called her a nerd, or someone who is studious. Um, okay - and what does that have to do with watching Entertainment Tonight and the E! Channel?
Maybe in the Stantis household wonk - which hasn't been popular since the 60s - is still in regular usage. But around these parts, nobody uses it. Oops, wait - I found a website. Maybe this is what Stantis was referencing: www.celebritywonk.com.
But, um, that site hasn't been updated since May.
I think I know what Stantis was going for here. He wanted to have Winslow call Carmen a know-it-all, but how can she be if she doesn't keep up with EVERYTHING, including who Owen Wilson is banging? Like I said, it's not a bad joke, but the punchline is horrendous - nobody uses the word "wonk" anymore, at least not anywhere I've seen, and not in the way Stantis is using it here.
It's not like he ran out of room - Carmen leaves the last panel leaving plenty of open space. If he had spent some time thinking about this, I'm sure he could have come up with a bunch of different punchlines:
"Ha - that's why you're not the new host of The View!"
"I guess you don't know it all, do you Miss Know-It-All?!"
"Well I care! As do the rest of Americans! If Kate Hudson is a cheater, who's next? K-Fed? J-Lo? P-Diddy? TomKat? Branjelina???"
"You should care - I think this is one of the signs of the apocalypse! Right after Nick and Jessica break up!"
"Sure, you care who Bill Clinton's sleeping with, but not Kate Hudson? She's way more powerful than he is!"
"Welcome to America, Macaca!"
Two minutes. Two minutes for me to come up with punchlines I think are at least as good as using a word that hasn't been popular since "Green Acres."
Well, except that last one. Only racist Southerners think that one is funny. Where are you from again, Scotty?
Posted by The Furnace at 08:42 AM | Comments (1)
September 08, 2006
F.U., Mr. U.S.A.D.D. AKA S.S.
Let me get this straight. Let me see if I understand this correctly. Master Modern American Satirist, Scott Stantis, let this past week unfold as follows:
Monday [Labor Day] --> How about that energy drink, eh?
Tuesday --> How about that energy drink, eh?
Wednesday --> How about that energy drink, eh? It's just what "Ritalin Nation" needs.
Thursday --> Whatever happened to leisure time in America?
Friday --> Ritalin Nation AKA U.S.A.D.D. always has to be doing something. Awwwwwwwwwwwww AKA Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Either he is more subtle than he lets on and this week was a satire of ADD storytelling OR he is even more confused, stupid, ugly, drunk, high on fumes, misguided, awful, terrible, sucky, craptacular, horrendous, monkey-fucking, and in need of his own Ritalin subscription than I originally thought.
YOU make the call, gentle reader.
Posted by CJo at 08:16 AM | Comments (2)September 07, 2006
Alemana Right to Advanced Hip Twist
What ever happened to predictability, the milkman, the paperboy, evening tv? What ever happened to pong? What ever happened to Baby Jane? What ever happened to the Hall of Fame? What ever happened to twin sets? What ever happened to...leisure?
Leisure, that's a funny thing for Carmen to ask. It's very Old Europe. Derived from the Old French leisir, in fact, noun use of the infinitive leisir: permission, leisure, spare time. I thought from reading some of the more respected conservative minds, Pat Buchanan among others, that this kind of permissiveness has allowed the continent of the Frogs and their siesta-ing Spaniard neighbors to turn into Eurabia. Or isn't our lack of productivity what's allowing jobs to be outsourced to India or the southwestern states to be swallowed back in the supersecret stealth "Area 51"-like grand reconquista plan of the Mexicans who come here to work twice as hard and five times as cheap in order to undermine our good English-isn't-our-official-language-anyhow nation? Great hurdy gurdy, man. Either we have too much time or too little. Methinks our scribbler has too much time, and that by cutting down on the marker-huffing he could've perhaps gotten this strip in on time and fit in into the Labor Day slot, where it would've made .01% more sense, relatively speaking.
Posted by Sacki at 09:24 AM | Comments (2)September 06, 2006
The Best Of
Thanks to the Furnace's idea and the many reader suggestions, I was inspired to revisit the Prickly City archive to unearth the Best of the Best of Prickly City. I present to you the best of the strip in its two+ years of existence:
This was the one strip in which he delivered both a stinging political commentary and a hilarious joke. Also, he for once kept his characters consistent.
Keep 'em coming, Scott Stantis. You're the true antidote to this Ritalin Nation full of Obese People Who are Addicted to Technology and Thongs.
Posted by CJo at 08:04 AM | Comments (2)September 05, 2006
Later This Week: A "Red Bull Gives You Wings" Joke
From a writing standpoint, this might be the worst one Scott Stantis has ever come up with.
It's a fine idea: Winslow is following the crowd by loving him some energy drink. Nevermind that they've been popular for ages now - remember, this is Scott Stantis, a guy who probably still walks around asking "where's the beef?" Carmen asks if he'd jump off a cliff like everyone else, and he says, "I already do."
Okay, I get the "joke." With Winslow trying to fly all the time, he jumps off of cliffs. But that wasn't the question. And this is where my head explodes.
Maybe if instead of drawing Winslow as being a smug prick and had him explain, "Well I jump off of cliffs all the time!" it might have made more sense. But it took me a half dozen readings to understand the "punchline" here. Is Winslow a trendsetter if NOBODY jumps off of cliffs, which is the point Carmen was trying to make? Ugh.
Someone needs to introduce Stantis to the term "rewrite." Any good writer will tell you that writing something isn't the hard part - it's going back and rewriting it over and over again until it's good. I don't care how pressed for time Scotty is. Today's strip isn't time sensitive - he could have gone back and figured out a way to make his little joke about cliff diving in a way that was humorous and easy to follow. Instead it's obvious once again that he gets an idea, scribbles it down, and hands it in.
Seriously, has anyone - I mean ANYONE - who reads Prickly City said immediately, "Now THAT'S a great strip!" I don't mean the whole run, I mean just one single day's comic. If you have, please tell us which one you thought deserved an "A+" in the comments section. Then maybe later this week we can convince CJo to go back through his collection and dig up the "Best of the best of Prickly City."
I have a feeling it'll be a very short post.
September 04, 2006
Laber Dey
Yuch [sic], indeed.
I'm cynically optomistic [sic] this week won't be all filler and that he'll ultimately turn to juicy targets such as Cynthia McKenna [sic].
I'd write more, but Jesus, the undocumented Coyote who writes Monday's entries, was given the day off today by the pinko commie labor supporters.
When are we going to have a day to celebrate corporations, CEOs, tycoons, barons, and magnates? Oh wait. On second thought, maybe we already have. November 7, 2000 and November 2, 2004, and, heck, every day in-between and after and forevermore until the end of time. Amen.
Posted by CJo at 07:11 AM | Comments (1)September 03, 2006
PricklyCity@sucks.com
Yesterday I did something you're never supposed to do: I assumed something. Winslow said, "Hey! I won the salsa contest at the Prickly City VFW!" Now for me, the first thing that pops into my head when I hear salsa is that stuff you dip nacho chips into. Heck, if you google "salsa" the first half dozen entries are for the dip. Which led me to wonder what the heck a 90-year-old with a broken hip had to do with salsa dip and Tucker Carlson.
What I should have assumed was that Scott Stantis was talking about salsa dancing.
Originally I was going to take full blame for this. I should have known that talking about Tucker dancing would mean that Stantis was talking about salsa dancing. But who can blame me for thinking he was talking about dip? When was the last time anybody talked about salsa dancing? And why didn't Stantis put the word "dancing" after salsa just to clarify? This is what happens when a writer is so crappy that someone like me accepts the first definition of what we're reading and wonder what the heck he's talking about. What also made it confusing was that this salsa dancing competition was at the VFW. Huh? Does anybody know of a VFW Hall that's hosting a dancing contest this weekend? So while I shouldn't have assumed anything when it comes to the idiocy that is Stantis, he should have gone with the mambo or hell the macarena, two dances people have talked about more than salsa in the past ten years.
Anywho, today instead of Winslow flying we get Scott Stantis's fear of all things technical and his whining that people don't communicate face to face anymore. Blah blah blah. Find a new record, because this one is broken. Or maybe upgrade to 8 track. I'd suggest buying an iPod, but I'm sure since he hates technology so much he'd never have something as advanced as a podcast. That would just be hypocritcal of him.
Quick question: who is Winslow talking to online so much?
I think it's ironic that Stantis whines and cries that people don't have any real friends anymore and they don't talk enough with their families, yet Winslow's only friend is Carmen and vice versa. Maybe if he had some talent he could come up with other characters that can bitch and moan about how terrible things are even though the Republicans are in charge. I know, I know - it's the Democrats' fault that we have all of this technology yet still have to work two jobs to pay all of the bills. It has nothing to do with the outrageous deficit or enormous debt, nothing at all.
If Stantis were smart and actually topical Winslow would become a radical liberal smelly stinky blogger who's taking over the Democratic party. It would have been an interesting way for him to cover the Lamont/Lieberman campaign without having to wait two weeks until after the primary to cry about Lieberman's loss. But no - Stantis keeps getting paid to churn out this crap week in and week out, and he's not about to try harder as long as they keep handing him checks. Pitiful.
Sorry, I'm too irritated to slap on the Future Goggles. What's the point? Does he dare talk about Israel and Hezbollah? Will Winslow refer to Carmen as "Macaca" (now that could actually be interesting)? Oh god - it could be a week of "Bush loves fart jokes." At least tomorrow's a holiday - the staff here at Shrubville is going to need an extra day to rest up in order to deal with Winslow passing gas.
Posted by The Furnace at 12:23 PM | Comments (1)September 02, 2006
Dancing King
It's like driving past a car wreck on the highway. You know you shouldn't, but you can't keep from looking over at the carnage. The only difference here is that I get to point out how stupid the driver is that caused this mess.
Seriously, what in the world was going on in his mind when Stantis wrote this? I think I have an idea. He wanted closure on that little stuck up bitch Carmen no longer liking Tucker Carlson because he's going to be on Dancing With the Stars. Why doesn't she like him anymore? His audience on MSNBC is merely a blip on the Nielsen radar, while Dancing is a top twenty hit. It's a great PR move, even if he embarrasses himself. But he's not even considered the long shot - Jerry Springer has that honor. That's right - Jerry Springer, best known for his TV show but who's also one of the best hosts on Air America radio. Why not go after Jerry instead of ragging on Tucker? I might not like the guy, but at least Carlson is taking one for the team. But I guess in Stantis's mind "dancing = gay" - but "bow tie = manly man."
Then there's the bizarre use of dialogue in this strip. At first Carmen is thinking to herself how she can't like Tucker anymore. In panel two she does the same, and while she's talking to herself in her head Winslow walks up talking about a salsa contest at the VFW (more on that later). It gets weird in the third panel. Carmen says - OUTLOUD - that she's entering the "losing all respect" part of the breakup. Um, I didn't know that was one of the steps, but okay. Winslow just stands there. I can't tell if he's dumbfounded or high, but he doesn't respond. What if you walked up to a friend and the first thing they blurt out is, "hence the 'losing all respect' part of the breakup?" Wouldn't you be like, "what the hell are you talking about?" Instead Stantis has Carmen bizarrely shift gears and talk salsa while Winslow cracks a lame joke about an old man being "muy caliente."
SMASH! It's like metal on metal as Stantis has zero idea what the hell he's doing and it's one idea crashing into another in a strip that makes no sense.
As for that last panel: what's funny about that? I simply don't get it. Why does it matter that the runner-up was so old? I'd think Winslow would be proud - he was able to defeat a guy that's been making salsa since World War I. And why make light of the guy breaking his hip? It's as if Stantis was watching Mind of Mencia and heard a joke that he just had to steal, and somehow Stantis turns something that's just unfunny to something that's unfunny and makes no sense.
This is what happens when a comic strip artist wings it every week instead of planning out what to do with his characters. He could have had a week of Carmen pining over Tucker, wondering why he would do it, and maybe even seeking Tucker out to beg him not to do it for fear of embarrassing the Republican party. Nope - we get a strip and a half of Carmen going from loving the guy and wanting to have his babies to writing him off as a fag. Bravo, Scott Stantis - you've taken one of the very few interesting qualities of one of your characters that actually tried to provide a third dimension to her personality and thrown it into the trash in favor of lame jokes about old men making salsa. Next up, Winslow proposes to Conde on the anniversary of her buying thousand dollar shoes while New Orleans drowned - because apparently that's an attractive quality while dancing is a turn off.
Side note: I really hope that by holding this contest at the VFW Stantis isn't implying that Winslow is now a veteran because of his stint in the "war on desert hamsters." I'm just going to assume it was just a place where Stantis knows they have stuff like that so I don't go completely berzerker on his ass for insulting those who have truly served this country by having Winslow say he's a vet. We'll have to see where he goes with it tomorrow - hopefully it'll just be Winslow failing to fly so I can put on the Future Goggles.
September 01, 2006
Blam-O, Baby
Whether it's a sigh of longing ("Oh why oh why won't Tucker Carlson dance with me?") or a sigh of disappointment ("Oh why oh why would such a 'respected' and 'honorable' 'pundit' like Tucker lower himself to this dreck?"), the only solution for you, my dear Carmen, is to simply move a few inches to your left and try to fly. Just let go, Carmen. Leave the ledge. Catch some wind. Plummet to your death. He'll never love you. Not unless you change your stance on thongs and pick up a nice Spongebob number. Then maybe Tucker Carlson will pay attention to you, an 8-year-old Hisblackic neo-con tot who lives in a faith-based homeless shelter.
Oh, but alas, Carmen, you need cash to exchange for a thong. I imagine you could be a little short on cash. Might I suggest a career in the military? It's a good way to raise some dough and you'll be doing something you really believe in. You can advance to the position of hugging "desert hamsters." Blam-O, baby. See you in heaven.
Posted by CJo at 07:55 AM | Comments (1)
picture courtesy of JB