Monday, September 3, 2007

Cartoon for September 3

Militant preciousness, led by those you-know-who type, is on the march.



Click on the cartoon to see it larger.
Posted by at

25 comments:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 3, 2007 at 9:20 AM

    Ted, I normally get all your stuff without fail, but this one escapes me. Is this a reference to Burning Man?

    ReplyDelete
  2. angeloSeptember 3, 2007 at 2:44 PM

    it is in reference to a (or to perhaps all) meaningless events.

    What Ted fails to understand is that his politics date his work, whereas the mindless artists he attacks are timeless.

    ReplyDelete
  3. John MadziarczykSeptember 3, 2007 at 2:59 PM

    Nice. I tracked down the book version of "Might" magazine once and found, among other interesting essays, something by David Eggers about how language was coarsening. He's a rebel and he knows it!

    I could say something witty about the hipsters in Brooklyn, but after living in the center of hipster land NW, i.e. Olympia, for several years, it isn't that funny anymore.

    ...perverted offspring of Indie rock culture, gone wrong somewhere along the way....

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousSeptember 3, 2007 at 3:58 PM

    Founded by who?

    Ted, the text is too small. You need to make a larger version of your comics for the website...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ted RallSeptember 3, 2007 at 5:27 PM

    I understand it, Angelo, I do. Anyway, it ain't jealousy. John Irving, I'm jealous of because he's smarter and better at writing than I am. This fey twee stuff that marks the death knell of American fiction as a relevant form of expression, I look down upon. There is a difference.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ted RallSeptember 3, 2007 at 5:28 PM

    I'm working on a website redesign that should address some of the issues with the current site, and I'll make sure to address the resolution issue.

    Of course, if you want to see cartoons the way they're supposed to appear--and ensure that the artist will be paid so that they'll continue to appear--write to your local print newspaper editor to ask him/her to run them.

    The Internet is killing cartooning.

    ReplyDelete
  7. angeloSeptember 3, 2007 at 6:49 PM

    lmao
    I've read Irving. If John Irving is smarter than you, then why does he never get attacked by the right wing media? Why does he not get in Cuntlers face when she said Cider House Rules was a sneaky abortion ad.

    You see the same thing in punk rock. There are punk bands who speak in very general terms about life, and are punk bands who were hyperspecific. But all along, there were bands that did not speak about anything relevant to their time because they wanted to be timeless. Well, dirt is timeless, that does not mean I care about it.

    I think that any work's best defense against future lameness is relevance and specificity. Even if your style goes in and out of style, it still offers a usefull historical record. This will be the main difference between Dead Kennedys and the Ramones. All artists should be journalists. Just my opinion.

    Nice cartoon.

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousSeptember 3, 2007 at 7:13 PM

    Funny, the internet seems to be doing great for PvP, Penny Arcade, Ctrl-Alt-Delete, and others.

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousSeptember 4, 2007 at 12:28 AM

    Huh... I don't get this cartoon.

    ReplyDelete
  10. JamesSeptember 4, 2007 at 12:31 AM

    Is that frame about the guy lamenting the loss of his keys a swipe at Harvey Pekar?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Ted RallSeptember 4, 2007 at 3:59 AM

    Re: Penny Arcade et al.: Exceptions don't disprove a rule. The Internet has indeed been a boon for some cartoonists. Overall, however, it has replaced a paid model with a free one. In the past, for example, when a popular cartoon was canceled by a newspaper or magazine, its fans would press its editor for its return. Fans of "Zippy," for example, picketed the SF Chronicle offices. Now, however, readers merely turn to the Web.

    It's great for readers, but very, very bad for cartoonists. Ultimately, talented professional cartoonists will quit to do something else, leaving behind amateurs--some of whom are great, but most of whom are not.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Ted RallSeptember 4, 2007 at 4:00 AM

    Re: Harvey Pekar question: No. It is not. (What would be the connection there? Sorry--I've never read Pekar's stuff.)

    ReplyDelete
  13. wonder breadSeptember 4, 2007 at 7:11 AM

    Racist.

    ReplyDelete
  14. G. M. PalmerSeptember 4, 2007 at 7:39 AM

    Not to get too nitpicky
    but it's simply changing the way they get paid.
    They sell t-shirts and bumper stickers and "megatomes." Now this takes a lot more work than getting a check from a newspaper -- which means that people like Ted or Pat Oliphant wouldn't have as much time to do research, etc. though I wonder how much ad revenue Ted can make from this website -- how many hits a day do you get, Ted? Enough to make it viable? I'd love to see you completely independent.

    ReplyDelete
  15. AndersSeptember 4, 2007 at 8:43 AM

    "Why does he not get in Cuntlers face when she said Cider House Rules was a sneaky abortion ad."

    But the book _was_ an argument for self-determined abortion. It wasn't very sneaky either, it was quite obvious, as abortions were a recurring theme in the book.

    Perhaps I misunderstood your comment.

    ReplyDelete
  16. AngeloSeptember 4, 2007 at 9:17 AM

    Weird. Around 2000 an artist I know started doing alot of work with birds and shit like that. (I just googled fey twee because Ted saying it was the first I'd heard of it) and what do I see but a bunch of bird art. Now that artist is working on fantasy stuff, like life-size unicorn installations.

    I think most people take for granted that this generation will produce nothing but irrelevant eye candy and quasi-ironic, novelty.

    ReplyDelete
  17. JamesSeptember 4, 2007 at 12:03 PM

    Many American Splendor comics deal with fairly mundane, ordinary, day to day stuff, including a few instances of Harvey losing his keys (he is the "superhero" in most of his strips). I thought that frame may have been an (unfair) critique of Mr. Pekar, whose work I find to be jarringly honest and fascinating in its portrayal of regular schlubs like himself (and myself).

    ReplyDelete
  18. AnonymousSeptember 4, 2007 at 8:47 PM

    Well, Penny Arcade, PvP and others worked hard to get where they are. It's not luck, and it certainly wasn't dropped inthier laps. Bitching that the big, bad internet is making your life harder is really just a cop out. And poo-pooing those that have made a name for themselves on the internet smacks of elitism.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Ted RallSeptember 4, 2007 at 8:57 PM

    Reading comprehension: the lost art. Did I ever say, or imply, that the artists behind successful webcomics like Penny Arcade didn't work hard or deserve their success? Nope. Reread my post above; all I'm saying is that the Internet has made most cartoonists poorer. Which most cartoonists would confirm.

    ReplyDelete
  20. angeloSeptember 4, 2007 at 9:10 PM

    Anders, I am not very exact when paraphrasing Cuntler. That said, it would be very hard to present her as more incoherent than she is. None of the characters in CHR are not dead against abortion. Circumstances drive them to assist in performing abortions that are safe for the women getting them. Cuntler's self serving, paint-by-numbers critique is more evidence of ... uhh why do I bother?

    ReplyDelete
  21. AndySeptember 4, 2007 at 11:09 PM

    Well, for what it's worth, I first discovered Ted on washingtonpost.com. Too bad they don't carry you anymore...

    I would have found you later in alternative weekly’s I started reading but then I would've missed a lot of good ones.

    Undoubtedly the internet cuts down on artists’ revenue. One wonders if the 20th century phenomena that transformed (some) artists from palpers into "wealthly" people is soming to a close. Art itself will survive it. It managed alright in the past. I maintain that very few musicians are any good at all once they "make it."

    The 20th century was a time to enormous change for humans I for one hope change never stops-- as long as I still have job.

    ReplyDelete
  22. AnonymousSeptember 5, 2007 at 10:52 AM

    Hi,
    The cartoon was partly hard to understand - what helped was the fact that I do work with these same people in the peace movement.
    Speaking of - can you be the first comic to sponsor a working class perspective? Get a guest opinion once in a while?
    Rich people will be the end of us.
    - MOU

    ReplyDelete
  23. lrlSeptember 5, 2007 at 12:33 PM

    "Anders, I am not very exact when paraphrasing Cuntler."

    But angelo, from previous threads I though you were all about the meticulously precise use of language.

    ReplyDelete
  24. AngeloSeptember 6, 2007 at 7:24 PM

    "But angelo, from previous threads I though you were all about the meticulously precise use of language."

    lrl, (congrats on your boy. He really handed the repugs their asses last night. If this race does not come down to Dennis and Ron, I give up on this country.) I only have a problem with imprecision when it is as off as you were when you implied that Ted believed conservatism=treason. But enough about me. What do you think of the cartoon?

    ReplyDelete
  25. AudioSeptember 7, 2007 at 5:43 AM

    g.m., how exactly would someone with ads on his site be "completely independent"? Have you missed what power advertisers have over content?

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)