The real reason

I assume you're talking about something I posited a reason for, in one article or another, which you disagree with. I'd wonder what the "real" reason is, but I'm more curious about what you're talking about in the first place. So never mind what the real reason is. Just twee us what it's the reason for.

Yeah, you can assume that. You were just plain WRONG! I did everything I was supposed to do to post the fact, but your forum software is kinda dumb. so it just put up blank space. What I said was:

I think you will find that it was not the public's lack of interest in Steve Canyon that caused him to be removed from newspapers but the editors who were against the war. The same thing happened to Li'l Abner, who criticized the editors' sacred cows.

What's with the auack?

Oink,
Harold

Oh? And where would I go to "find" that? What I've found in sources I trust confirms my memory of the time -- that people got fed up pouring vast amounts of money and vast numbers of young lives down a rathole that we had no business getting involved with in the first place. It's happening again right now, so you should be able to look around you and see that editors don't have to tell people they should be against a war that never was doing them any good.

It seems to be axiomatic with some folks that people can't think for themselves. If they display thoughts that those folks find unsavory, it can only be because evil forces (in this case, newspaper editors) caused them to to think that way. And if you weren't wedded to your right-wing prejudices, I think you would "find" this to be the case.

As for Abner, I think you will find that it was dropped because it had stopped being funny. I have definite thoughts on this matter, which touch on the "sacred cows" you allege, but they're too complex to fit in this little box. Maybe I'll write a blog entry on the subject in the next day or two. (Does anybody read the blog?)

This reminds me of a Jack Chick comic I read years ago, which explained belief, against some religious dogma, in Darwinian evolution. Since it violated Chick's dogma, it could only be because unscrupulous publishers were reaping millions by promoting it, heedless of the obvious danger to people's souls.

Unexplained was exactly how millions could be reaped by endangering souls. Too bad. I wouldn't mind getting on that gravy train myself.

Quack, Don

P.S.
Oh yes, the "quack". When your first name is Donald and your middle initial is D, people will sometimes ask if the D stands for "Duck". It's been happening to me all my life. Since there's nothing I can do to stop it, I can either get irritated by it, or embrace it. That's how the Duck became my totem early on, and why my desk is covered with little duck toys, figurines and suchlike today. It may also be why I was drawn to write Walt Disney comic books (tho I think the genius of Carl Barks may have had more to do with inclining me in that direction). Anyway, I've been using "Quack" as the complimentary closing in correspondence, especially in the comic book industry, for about a third of a century now.

What about you? May I assume the P in your name stands for "Pig"?

Quack, Don

I read the blog! And I'm a little confused by this entry, actually--here you say that he stopped being funny, but in the blog post you seem to contradict that.

I've read some of the later Abner strips (it's one of my favourite comics ever) and yes, it does get really, really strident and unfunny by the late 60s. I am a pretty "liberal" guy but his humour is unmistakably more subtle and clever (and generally less political) in the early years than by this time frame. Of course, the irony is that Capp himself wasn't really doing the strip at that point anyway, whatever his politics--he'd mostly handed it over to ghosts at that point, I believe. Then there's the fact that Capp himself was acting like a bit of a jerk in real life (like his bizarre confrontation with John Lennon) which may not have helped his case.

But yeah, it's always pretty tiresome to me to hear people blame every percieved slight to their opinions on the "liberal" media, especially nowadays when there's undeniably a thriving "conservative" media that seems to exist only to push a single agenda. The modern comparison is "Mallard Fillmore", an unfunny and grating strip that exists only to promote the usual conservative talking points. Like much of this "conservative" media, it's not about talent or wit or insight or any of the usual qualifications for art, it's about saying the "right" things. So it gets championed in the usual quarters, even when Tinsley turns out to be a drunk driver or picks a (really strange) fight with Jon Stewart for no particularly good reason. When he gets dropped by newspapers, it's not because of any of that or the quality of his work, it's because he's being picked on by the liberal media.

I guess it's a bit sloppy to say one thing in the Forum, then contradict it in the Blog, but that's what you have to deal with when youre talking about a sloppy guy like me. I'm sure there's a way to reconcile the two statements -- at least, they seemed consistent to me when I wrote them, but you can't very well go with what I say about my own writing.

I think this may be the first time I've heard the word "subtle" applied to Al Capp's humor, even in a relative sense, comparing one period of his work with another. I agree that Abner was one of the funniest comics of all time, but I wouldn't call anything about it "subtle". When my older daughter was about 8 or so, she picked up the habit of taking the Kitchen Sink volumes off the shelf and enjoying them on her own. By the time she reached her teens, she'd read a substantial fraction of Capp's entire lifetime output. And I'm here to tell ya -- if he appealed to that kid, his humor was anything but subtle.

As for "Liberal Media" -- if it exists, then it's the only institution controlled by elderly, wealthy white men that shows a bias in that direction.

And we also agree on Mallard Filmore, tho I hate to say so out loud because it opens me to criticism that I dislike it merely because I disagree with it. That's why I welcomed an instance several years ago, when he deplored something I also deplore, teenage illiteracy, and was still ham-fisted and unfunny about it. The problem is, the fuzzy-brained "liberal" characters are mere straw men, there just to look like fools when the hero shines the light of his penetrating wisdom in their direction. "Penetrating wisdom" that I can hear in any supermarket checkout line in the neighborhood.

I know nothing of Bruce Tinsley, personally. Maybe I'm just not paying attention, because I don't care. I always enjoyed an Al Capp appearance on Johnny Carson's show, even when I thought he was being toad-like, but I can't work up an interest in Tinsley's appearances in the media.

As for newspapers dropping him supposedly because of "liberal" editors -- I'd be interested in seeing updated circulation figures. According to the King Features Web site, it's held rock-steady for more than a decade. Back when Clinton was president, it made sense for it to run in over 400 papers, because he had such a ripe target for his humor, such as it is. But with the country being managed according to his evident principles, even his supporters have to find the jokes flatter, and I'd expect his circulation to show that.

Whether Clinton or Bush is in charge, I'm not a Mallard Filmore fan. I'd just like to see if current circulation figures show more agreement with me. Too bad none are available.

Thanks for reading the blog.

I've always thought of myself as "conservative". I deplore government sticking its nose into people's affairs, favor government according to the Constitution, and other things that conservatives used to claim to believe in. But starting about in the 1980s or so, conservatism left me. Now, I get called a liberal all the time. I guess I'd be appalled, if the words meant anything anymore.

Quack, Don

OK, OK...instead of "subtle", how about "less political"? It seemed aimed more at human foibles in general, is what I'm saying. In later years he (or the strip, anyway) was overtly targeting certain groups, which ironically made it seem less relevant.

And I miss conservatives like you! Come back, please!

Yeah, but everybody thinks humor is "less political" when it isn't attacking what he believes. There are probably people in this world who think Mallard Filmore isn't political.

This reminds me of an essay I posted in 2002, titled "Comparative Religion", in which I said the modern Republican Party is a religion. The site it was on is gone now, but I can send copies if anybody wants one. (Redundancy alert: I used a couple of talking points in it that have turned up in this thread. (I'd post it in the blog, but it isn't about cartoons.)

I wonder what HarryP thinks of all this. He struck me as the sort of guy that essay was about.

Quack, Don

P.S.
Y'know, this reminds me of a message board discussion I had years ago, with a prominent comic book critic, who calls himself a conservative. He'd posted something approving about a technique used by prosecutors, to get people who beat criminal prosecutions, by charging them with the same crime under, several different laws.

It sounded like unconstitutional double jeopardy to me, so I replied about how it beats me how people who claim they want government off our backs can support using legal technicalities to harass people for years, over something a jury said they never did in the first place.

He said something fairly venomous about how liberals "like me" support government harassment of innocent people in so many ways, but complain when conservatives want to go after "criminals" more effectively.

I challenged him to find a single instance, in 30 years of my printed and on-line writing (closer to 40 now), in which I supported any expansion of government, in any way at all.

He dropped out of the thread, while I went on with others about how I supported the Army not inquiring into soldiers' sexual preferences because that's the conservative point of view, wanted them to stop prosecuting victimless crimes because that's the conservative point of view, didn't think the government should prevent same-sex marriage because that's the conservative point of view, and took the conservative point of view in many other ways that he found appalling.

To this day, he hasn't responded to anything else I ever said.

Quack, Don

What do I think of all this? Well, first off, it's not HarryP it's HaroldP. You wouldn't call Howard Chaykin "Howie" would you?
Second off I think its funny how you say you're not a liberal. I knew you how liberal you are when you said the P in my name stood for Pig.


oink oink onk quack quack