March 18, 2008
No Paradise
At some point editors across the country need to ask themselves a question: who exactly is the target audience for Prickly City?
Today's strip continues Stantis' tribute to conservative icon William F. Buckley (but Carmen was so close to him she gets to call him Bill), someone only adults know about. It ends with Winslow making a joke only really stupid children would think is funny. The kind of joke Billy Buckley would probably point to to show how ignorant America has become. "Pair-a-dime?" Really? Did Stantis intend everyone who reads this to start their day with a groan?
I could understand it if this was the kind of strip a parent reads to their child in the morning. Junior can't read those big words that Buckley would say, so he needs an assist from the old man. After dad spends a few hours trying to explain who this Bill Buckley person is and why anybody cares that he died, he then reads the rest of a joke that only makes sense if you read it outloud. And then the kid is sent back a grade in school because he's made dumber by having heard this stupid joke. The dominant paradigm is twenty cents? Wouldn't that be paradigms? Sorry - I was trying to think like a normal person with a functioning brain for a second there.
What I do think is amusing is the idea of Buckley in the afterlife, reading Stantis' "tribute" from beyond the grave. Having one of the worst conservative writers talk about how influential Buckley was to him is probably the best backhanded compliment one could give a neo-con dick like Billy Boy.
