Comic Strip Writing 101: No Sleep 'Til Publication
Lesson Four: Nothing to Say, Everything Done Wrong
Sometimes due to contractual obligations and/or impending deadlines, a cartoonist must forge ahead with a comic strip even if they don't have a single joke or even the slightest example of insight to share. This is what is known as 98% of the comics you see in the newspaper every single goddamn day. But how do you write a strip when you have absolutely nothing to say? You take one of three tactics:
Tactic One: Be an Asshole
The above strip is courtesy of Scott Stantis, a man who was kicked out of California State College (School Motto: "Reading Is Hard"), causes the citizens of Birmingham, AL to die a little inside each day they read one of his spectacularly uninformed editorial cartoons and who puts the "prick" in the new neo-conservative syndicated comic strip "Prickly City." Displaying a wit just right of Eric Rudolph, Stantis's remarkably inefficient education (his bio's biggest boast is that he graduated high school) has led him to mistake "The Book of Genesis" as front-line reporting, misread "racial equality" as "you stole my free ride" and hate feminists probably because like most carbon-based units and deli condiments, they can easily outsmart him. Obstensibly about a coyote cub, Winslow (the cat-looking character) sharing "life lessons" with a small girl, Carmen, the strip actually documents the reactionary education of our next Ann Coulter (who, oddly enough, was also home-schooled by wildlife).
In the above example, Stantis equates the recent Terri Schiavo case with a little girl being denied a cookie because she's sad her college basketball team lost. Allow me to reiterate: Stantis equates the recent Terri Schiavo case with a little girl being denied a cookie because she's sad her college basketball team lost. In trying to deride those who sought to allow Ms. Schiavo a natural and dignified death, Stantis actually manages to show a disdain for life that would make Stalin stop and utter "Damn!" Later "Schiavo-inspired" strips contained such jaw-droppingly unsubtle and indefensible dialogue as:
Carmen: Stop denying me food, Winslow!
Winslow: I'm doing it to stop your suffering, Carmen. Besides, suicide and euthanasia are cool now. Hunter Thompson. 'Million Dollar Baby.' It's all the rage.
Carmen: But my parents want to take care of me. They love me and don't want me starved to death!
Winslow: Well, don't come whining to me because you're not a cool dead person!
Remember when all those supporters for Terri to be allowed a dignified end were holding signs that read "Death Is Bitchin'!" Neither do I. Remember when the American Psychiatric Association defined "suicide" as "being edgy and with-it"? Neither do I. But in Stantis' defense, he is clinically retarded. No wonder that along with "BC" and "Mallard Filmore," "Prickly City" makes up what is known by college-degree-holding readers as the "Axis of Cartoonist Evil."
Tomorrow: Tactic Two--Be Completely Oblivious
Sometimes due to contractual obligations and/or impending deadlines, a cartoonist must forge ahead with a comic strip even if they don't have a single joke or even the slightest example of insight to share. This is what is known as 98% of the comics you see in the newspaper every single goddamn day. But how do you write a strip when you have absolutely nothing to say? You take one of three tactics:
Tactic One: Be an Asshole
The above strip is courtesy of Scott Stantis, a man who was kicked out of California State College (School Motto: "Reading Is Hard"), causes the citizens of Birmingham, AL to die a little inside each day they read one of his spectacularly uninformed editorial cartoons and who puts the "prick" in the new neo-conservative syndicated comic strip "Prickly City." Displaying a wit just right of Eric Rudolph, Stantis's remarkably inefficient education (his bio's biggest boast is that he graduated high school) has led him to mistake "The Book of Genesis" as front-line reporting, misread "racial equality" as "you stole my free ride" and hate feminists probably because like most carbon-based units and deli condiments, they can easily outsmart him. Obstensibly about a coyote cub, Winslow (the cat-looking character) sharing "life lessons" with a small girl, Carmen, the strip actually documents the reactionary education of our next Ann Coulter (who, oddly enough, was also home-schooled by wildlife).
In the above example, Stantis equates the recent Terri Schiavo case with a little girl being denied a cookie because she's sad her college basketball team lost. Allow me to reiterate: Stantis equates the recent Terri Schiavo case with a little girl being denied a cookie because she's sad her college basketball team lost. In trying to deride those who sought to allow Ms. Schiavo a natural and dignified death, Stantis actually manages to show a disdain for life that would make Stalin stop and utter "Damn!" Later "Schiavo-inspired" strips contained such jaw-droppingly unsubtle and indefensible dialogue as:
Carmen: Stop denying me food, Winslow!
Winslow: I'm doing it to stop your suffering, Carmen. Besides, suicide and euthanasia are cool now. Hunter Thompson. 'Million Dollar Baby.' It's all the rage.
Carmen: But my parents want to take care of me. They love me and don't want me starved to death!
Winslow: Well, don't come whining to me because you're not a cool dead person!
Remember when all those supporters for Terri to be allowed a dignified end were holding signs that read "Death Is Bitchin'!" Neither do I. Remember when the American Psychiatric Association defined "suicide" as "being edgy and with-it"? Neither do I. But in Stantis' defense, he is clinically retarded. No wonder that along with "BC" and "Mallard Filmore," "Prickly City" makes up what is known by college-degree-holding readers as the "Axis of Cartoonist Evil."
Tomorrow: Tactic Two--Be Completely Oblivious
posted by Francesco Marciuliano at 1:13 PM
subscribe to the drink at work newsletter
26 Comments:
Some of us without college degrees think those are the Axis of Cartoonist Evil, too!
Wow. Just wow. I've got to admit, I love comic strips and read just about anything, but I usually skip Sally Forth. Not anymore. That was the best analysis of the godawful comic strip Prickly City that I have ever seen.
Thank you. You have just made me happy in my pants.
Note the odd lips on the girl. She's supposed to be African-American. Stantis is such a poor cartoonist that he can't portray a black child, so how does he try to show her race, he gives her big lips!!!!!! What a hack!
Hysterical. I like the idea of a blood feud between you and Stantis. No one reads the comics anymore, but maybe they will if one of us is found lying in a puddle of blood, their throat slashed (a la that sexually deviant Hearst stooge on Deadwood... I just LOVE any show that uses the word "cocksucker" more than the word "the.") by a fact-challenged right-wing cartoonist who believes in exercising the death penalty personally.
I'll cry at your funeral.
To be fair to Stantis, the entire Birmingham News editorial page makes you die inside, so maybe he's just trying to fit in.
I confess I cannot stand Sally Forth but I certainly LOVE this website. Thank you, thank you for putting in words what I have felt for some time about these Neanderthal strips (I won't dignify them by calling them comic strips). For me though the really sad part is there are several people in my office who, as we put it, "Just don't get it." Stantis, Tinsley, et al, fall into that same category - pitiful!
It's just one of dozens of sorry-ass strips, but at least Stantis won't be sitting down for a while! More blood-fued, Ces!
Stantis? Wasn't he the guy who pooped out the similarly wretched "The Buckets" a few years ago? His crap strip wasn't funny the first time around. PLUS, the man draws like a retarded chimpanzee.
My problem with cartoonists like Stantis is that I'm too disbelieving that they exist to hate them. It's like him and Tinsley are just from Superman's Bizarro world. If I were to engage in conversation with them, it would be like talking to a piece of pumice.
The guys who writes the insipid *Sally Forth*, criticizing Scott Stantis? Best joke I've read all day!
Sally Forth may be insipid, but the current writer has to follow what the previous writers did. Scott Stantis has no excuse past stupidity and unconscious drooling. Oh. And an obviously paralyzed drawing hand, because middle-school art students can draw with more skill than that demented collection of swirls and jerks he puts out every day.
I don't find this strip at all funny, ever. It's a marketing gimmick with an egomaniac who apparently thinks he just has to write the first thing that comes to his mind for it to be worthy of publication.
But as I read Carmen's bio on the Web, I'd guess she's supposed to be Latino. Let's question who's reinforcing stereotypes.
Y'know what? I think that this particular strip is pretty funny. Taken in isolation, it's topical humour used to justify taking a cookie. That's neither a left- nor a right-justified comic, just someone being a jerk. Which is funny.
Unfortunately, it seems that this was just the beginning of what he wanted to say, the rest of it being, well, crap. Which is sad.
Cookies rules!
I. Hate. Prickly. City. So. Much.
Prickly City is the best joke all day
Prickl City sucks
I've never read Medium Large or Prickly City before but judging from this one strip and it's analysis, I would say that Stantis isn't the one who is a radically opinionated idiot. Since when does having only a high school diploma define some one as 'clinically retarded'? To me that's pretty impressive for the developmentally delayed. So I assume that that comment is really just an insult that really has no relevance at all. I would have thought someone with a post-secondary education would have something more meaningful to say.
Progress is dependant on varying points of view. Just because some doesn't agree with another's view, does that make the perspective in question stupid or its owner 'clinically retarded'? Being close-minded leads to arguments and stagnant ideas, neither of which is very productive. It is better to be objective when considering a problem, especially when a life is at steak. Actually weighing the pros and cons of all ideas is much more effective than taking sides immediately. I have much more respect for someone who has a view than for someone who has nothing better to do than call someone a retarded asshole. What irresponsible dick drinks at work?
Obvious, isn't it that you libs can dish it out but you can't take it. 19 comments so far and none of you mention Boondocks or Doonesbury spewing equally polarizing commentary from the left. That's okay, huh? But not Prickly City? You libs suck. Go set a Hummer on fire. If you don't like a cartoon, do like I do and spit on it - I always have a little spit for Boondocks and Doonesbury, even La Cucaracha. Makes me feel better even though they still make it into print each day in the Atlanta Journal.
well, the thing about boondocks and doonesbury is that they're usually right (not always). Prickly City just tries to pin everything on liberals. remember when the white house paid several columnists to push its agenda? Well in prickly city that turned into the evil and soulless liberal coyote trying to force the virtuous and moral conservative girl to accept a bribe. Doonesbury and Boondocks are both commentary on whats going on in the real world, prickly city is simply spewing groundless neocon viewpoints.
For the scary sourpuss that remains Anonymous that griped about Doonesbury and The Boondocks: grow up!
Boondocks most common targets are...da da da daaaaa, black people. R. Kelly and Tom DeLay are both equally likely to feel the fury of Huey Freeman.
Doonesbury is very left but they know when to cut the venom and show due respect (like when they listed the names of the veteran dead around Memorial Day--a classy and appropriate move).
Doonesbury is very well drawn and Boondocks's manga-inspired style gives a jolt of life to the comics pages but Prickly City looks like steaming horse excrement...and it reads worse...and she's supposed to be BLACK?!?
Oh HELLL no...
You don't have to share my views to be funny...Prickly City would have to work to be as funny as a starving child (which, for clarification ISN'T funny).
I found this site just in time. I was almost sure I was alone in my hatred for Prick Shitty.
Did you see the one with Barney singing to kids that they should vote for Hillary in 2008? And the punchline? The skunk and the martian kid or whatever they are are watching, and the skunk or polecat or armadillo thing says, "This is PBS."
Whoa! Scathing! AND not funny!
Not that Prickly City is any good, but your comics the week of the election last year were awful. "Don't fuck up again America!" Yeah, that's the height of wit.
Whatever side of the aisle someone sits, it helps tremendously if they can be funny about politics. Both of you have proven that you can't.
Try to use civil language for political discussions. Prickly City seems a mildly amusing diversion from left(wrong) wing commentary. Artwork is not up to Ann Telnaes standards, but few are. Points are made for conservative views, partial balance obtained. Some of the strips are fairly funny, Mallard Filmore also. RN.
So you're saying conservatives suck and that whoever disagrees with liberals are evil...nice.
Post a Comment
<< Home