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December 15, 2007
Lil' Miss 28% Gets Her Way - Again
Why do I get the feeling that Scott Stantis is sitting at home this weekend thinking he wrote a great series of strips this week? He felt confident enough that he had Carmen and Winslow yelling at each other for at least six days straight (hopefully Sunday will be a silly one-off, something I never thought I'd write), wrapping it up today with Winslow saying how quiet it is and Carmen telling him to shush, which is a nice way of saying "shut up."
Six days of this. Yet zero days spent on the US Attorney scandal or the outing of Valerie Plame or the story two weeks ago that the Iran NIE revealed that Iran hasn't had nuclear ambitions since 2003, and Bush lied about it (funny how the media has forgotten about THAT story).
What bothers me so much about this is that Stantis doesn't take the time to do the little things that would actually make the strip humorous. Yesterday left off with Carmen rolling up her sleeves so she could pound Winslow into submission (apparently she doesn't believe in the Harry Reid method of just giving the president everything he wants, especially if it's telecom immmunity for illegally spying on us). So wouldn't it have been funny to see Winslow today with a black eye, or his arm in a sling, or his leg in a cast, or all of the above? Instead, Winslow is just fine - if drawn rather bizarrely (check out how long his body is in the first frame, yet he's a dwarf in the last two).
The Carmen-as-bully storyline wasn't a terrible commentary on how the Republicans have been acting the past year - they filibuster almost everything, and any bills that do get through are just going to be vetoed by the bully-in-chief himself. Just a few months ago it was Trent Lott (before announcing he was going resign to make him some lobbyist money before the rules change) who was bragging that “The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail...and so far it’s working for us.” They may be a$$holes, but at least they're proud of being a$$holes.
But it's only for a moment Carmen's shown as the bully she really is (can't have her looking like she's the one to blame for all of this). She's then portrayed as a peacemaker who finally got her way and everybody's getting along - but the stupid silly stinky liberal Winslow is whining now that things are boring now and he wants to get back to fighting. Yeah, that's the Democratic party we all know and love - willing to stand up for their beliefs and fight to the death to do what's right for their constituents. Not.
One of these days Stantis might have the nerve to admit that his Republican party is to blame for most of the nonsense going on in Washington. But then again Carmen's part is about six inches wide in that third panel, so I guess good insightful political commentary shouldn't be expected from a guy who doesn't know how to draw.
Comments
The Furnace,
While it is true that Stantis spent zero days in PC on the Iran revelations, he did cover it in his editorial cartoons. And predictably, he sided with Bush.
http://blog.al.com/stantis/2007/12/dumb_intelligence.html
I also noticed how weirdly Winslow was drawn in panel one...maybe that beating from Carmen really "straightened him out." As I wrote yesterday, she really looked like Popeye in that last panel.
Posted by: Chris at December 15, 2007 06:04 PM
