Johnny Hart.
I typically give Mallard a pass on things like this. But, for God's sake, "the greatest cartoonist [Mallard has] ever known, [his] hero and friend" died on April 7, 2007!
During the intervening 3 months, Mallard felt the following topics (among others) were more important than a timely tribute to Johnny Hart:
- Evil Sun
- Al Sharpton and Don Imus
- Panhandlers
- John Edwards Haircut
- Sanjaya
- Alec Baldwin
- Reality TV
- Penguins
- Rosie O'Donnell
- The Sopranos
16 comments:
This isn't the first time a B.C. character appeared in "Mallard."
One strip few years ago had Mallard talking to his pet goldfish about "B.C." Don't remember any other details, though.
If anyone can find it, please post the link. It's somewhere at Jewish World Review website.
...talking to his pet goldfish about "B.C."
That's actually funnier than every Mallard and B.C. strip combined.
*actually reads strip*
and he stood up for his faith against all odds
Oh my GOD. That is so typical of Tinsley: portraying some deskbound scribbler pushing WASP ideals in the safety of WASP society as some fearless "Culture Warrior" fighting off the unwashed hordes who...well, who criticize him occasionally for his lightly-veiled hateful bigotry. It's just that usually Tinny's talking about himself.
THIS is what Tinny thinks is "defending one's faith against all odds:"
http://wondermark.com/tcsd/stripdoc_3.html
(You'll have to dig around for the B.C. strip where the Hebrew menorah is burned into a cross; even less ambiguity there.)
"...Against all odds." Ugh. Tinny loves to describe himself as "speaking truth to power," which is one of the very rare times his strip is laugh-out-loud hilarious. He's claimed to have gotten death threats for his Purple-Heartworthy exploits (*snicker*).
..."Profound as Peanuts?" Oh Lord...if my eyes keep rolling like this, they're gonna twist right out of the sockets.
Moron.
I just now realized that Thor is supposed to be standing on a stone wheel with a stick through it. Honestly, for all the world it looks to me like a set of gray buttocks.
The drawing is horrible because it is actually Peter or is it?
He's on a wheel, or is he?
I think Thor was the only one who rode the wheel, but the hairline makes it clearly Peter.
Either way he hasn't been edgy since he made fun of beatniks.
And he was only absurd when he had cavemen worshipping Jesus before he ever existed. Otherwise the strip would be called AD.
He stands up for his faith against the 15% of those in the country who didn't share it.
Courage.
I like how Tinshley places his own strip alongside "B.C.," "The Far Side," "Doonesbury," and "Peanuts."
"I also personally think Johnny Hart would be appalled at how poorly Mallard was able to draw Thor."
...or whoever the fuck, there were like four characters who looked like that.
His strip, this one, or any other strip, will never hold a candle to Calvin and Hobbes. Period.
Even his bitching about "ya think?" was able to preempt his tribute to his hero.
I used to love BC, back in the 60s.
It's important to not forget that politics aside, Tinsley is a crappy artist with no sense of humor at all.
Let's see... the strip started in 1958.
Hart (re)found Christianity in 1977.
So that makes... 19 years that Bruce Tinsley conveniently forgot that DIDN'T involve heavy-handed Christianity messages and the typical slams conservatives make towards others. From all account, the cartoon was apparently enjoyed by many during this earliest time.
yeah, he was a well established cartoonist with a huge newspaper clientele by the time he went kooky with the religion. He would have had to go in Mein Kampf territory for him to lose a significant amount of newspaper. That would not be courage it would be insane.
In Tinsley's defense, the Evil Sun was much, much cooler than anything Hart did in the last ten years, so I whole-heartedly endorse that preemption. In fact, I'm still holding out hope for the spin-off strip covering the adventures of the Evil Sun and his sidekick, Angst-filled Teenage Rat.
B.C. was a lot of things. "Profound" was not one of them.
Post a Comment