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June 05, 2007
Comedy Is Hard Work. Scott Stantis Must Hate Hard Work.
Because Stantis thought that "Is there a Mama New Guinea" was too clever...
If you have to explain a joke, it's not funny. Someone needs to drill this concept into Scott Stantis's brain, assuming he has one.
Today's strip is a two-fer in the non-sensical department. Apparently outsourcing at Prickly City translates to "I don't have to draw Winslow for the week!" Is Stantis THAT g*ddamn lazy that he'll use an excuse as lame as that outsourcing reporting to India story to justify not drawing a character he should be able to draw in his sleep? Yup.
The other head-scratcher is a play on words. Stantis must have read somewhere that some of our jobs have been sent to Micronesia, so he shoehorns in a joke asking if there's a "Macronesia." Do you get it? Micro/Macro?
No, of course you don't. Because THAT'S NOT A JOKE. Not in this context anyway. If you're a computer geek talking about how small the computer chips are that they make offshore in Micronesia and if in Macronesia they make bigger ones, then yeah maybe there are a few tech nerds out there that would guffaw. But what would the existence of a Macronesia have to do with Winslow and the mysterious "they" Carmen mentions in relation to today's strip? It's just more laziness on the part of Scott Stantis.
I would love for Scott to sit down and try to explain today's strip. What is Winslow's job that it's being outsourced? If that job has been outsourced, why has Winslow disappeared yet we can still hear him? Is Carmen also at work while she and Winslow walk and talk? Because that's apparently all Winslow does for work too. How does a website outsourcing the watching of local city council hearings apply to what's happening in Prickly City? Is asking if there's a Macronesia supposed to be funny simply because the other country is Micronesia? How does that relate to what's happening in this storyline?
Stantis, if you can't handle your workload, quit. Live off of your single panel political commentaries that appear on the OpEd pages where you're not reliant on two characters walking in the desert every day. If you're not going to take the time to come up with actual storylines that makes sense and jokes that make people laugh, then there's someone out there who is more than happy to put in the long hours to make it work. Heck, a few of them even read this website. I'm sure they'd love the platform you have every day.
If the guys who are so passionate about bitching about how terrible your strip is that they created a website dedicated to criticizing Prickly City are about to give up on it, how do you think the average comic strip reader feels? I'm guessing most of them gave up months ago. So do us all a favor: quit. Before it becomes even more obvious that the only reason you have a strip is because you're a Bush Republican.
Comments
OUTSOURCING DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!
Posted by: AtmanRyu at June 5, 2007 10:28 AM
Macronesia - or "large islands" would be Japan or the Philippines, right? Anyhoo, something is seriously screwed up with the space-time continuum, because the Wall Street Journal ran a story on how individuals outsource small tasks - like illustrations for a story - on Saturday. Scotty isn't supposed to be writing about it for two more weeks.
Posted by: Annie at June 5, 2007 10:33 AM
Wasn't Stantis just ranting about the media trying to instill fear in us? Then he comes out with this story line to make us think that one little news site outsourcing its local news coverage will cause coyotes to turn invisible! I don't see any way they could possibly be connected, but until I find out I am keeping my kids and pets inside.
Posted by: John at June 5, 2007 12:59 PM
