What's Mallard raving about today?
The Media, Grammar.
If there's one thing pretty much everyone agrees on, it's that America is being poorly served by our atrocious "News" Media.
If there's one thing pretty much everyone should agree on, it would be that Mallard is not one to lecture people on their use of the English language.
15 comments:
Nobody uses "myself" in that manner. Tinsley can't even be bothered to come up with an actual example of a usage that he nonetheless found egregious enough to devote an entire Sunday comic to. Doesn't get much more half-assed than that.
So does this mean Mallard will manage to actually to turn off the television instead of whining incessantly about what is on it?
Blallard's real message, of course, is that instead of network news, we should all be watching Glenn Beck on Fox.
What a tool.
Cheers!
JzB
Tinsley seems to encourage modern media, like the Internet, today, but, in fact, he prefers technology to be as old as possible. He thinks Johannes Gutenberg ruined society and made everyone retarded. He writes his comics with quill pens and sends them via horse-back messenger--thus, the lengthy lead times.
I actually chuckled at panel 2. Not that I have any idea what he's going on about. What's "network news"? He hates FOX now? As opposed to, what, "non-network news"? Newspapers? World Nut Daily? The town crier? He thinks that no one watches TV anymore? One would hope that it'd be cleared up in the final panel, but that has nothing to do with the rest of the strip.
Also, nice first panel. Why is Mallard's tie plastered to his shirt? Could it be--BARF? Oh, wait, can't say that. Must be from semen! That's better, right?
Calling people jingoist neanderthals = bad.
Drawing people as elitist neanderthals = good.
Other than that, the fact that the first two involve "network news" while the third one doesn't, makes this terrible writing on a basic level.
Ah, the reign of the King of Magical Thinking enters a brand new year. On Dec. 29, the viewer figures for network news broadcasts were as follows*:
NBC: 9.37 million
ABC: 8.56 million
CBS: 6.16 million
So, yeah, that's hardly anyone. For comparison, Fox News draws 2.2 million people average during primetime. A little less than a third of Katie Couric's numbers. Meanwhile, Tinshley's sober readership outside of this blog is what, seven? But no one watches network news any more! I know this because the cartoon duck told me it are so!
* The Internet. Oh, OK, fine: http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/evening_news_ratings/ .
@I hate chuck asay, interesting thought about the quill pen. That would mean Tin gets his drawing instruments from the same place as his opinions, plucked from a duck's ass.
@Bill: if my humble preferences have somehow become law, then I want some Swedish pancakes.
Cavemen... oh yeah, I know where I've seen that word before. It was 2003, and it was to the tune of "F Troop":
The end of the Eye-rack war was near*
And casual as you please,
The White House's flacks turned lies to facts
And trailers to W... MDs!
The papers were game to do the same,
This low they were glad to stoop.
Their mandate for truth was deemed uncouth
From now on they all would be... FOX TROOP!
Where cave men are thrilled
That Lib'rals are grilled
While neocons get a free pass,
And checking facts is strictly
cheap-ass!
So now black is white and peace is strife
And crap is tomato soup.
We all love Big Brother more than life
And get our opinions from...
FOX TROOP!
(New words (c) 2003 by Kip Williams.)
* Yeah, that's what they said!
@Kip:
I had to Google "Swedish pancakes," just in case it was some internet-only thing like a dirty Sanchez, except made out of barf and semen and goat.csex or however that's spelled. It turns out that "Swedish pancakes" means....Swedish pancakes.
Huh, that's weird! Something on the net that turns out to be normal! Will you settle for some latkes? Unlike a standard Mallard strip, they are guaranteed to not include barf or bullshit.
Bill, you mean they're actually Swedish? I thought that was one of those pancake-house recipes with an arbitrary name. They can be pretty tasty, though. Yeah, sure, latkes are fine. I'm just testing the extent of my new-found authoritah.
dlauthor - let not the factiness of your presentation detract from the underlying claims of foxduck. They want you to compare entertainment programs, such as The Simpsons, to news programs, such as ABC "World News". That way, they can claim they have more viewers without having to actually have a news program.
Beck? Hannity? O'Reilly? Fox says they are not news programs; that's why they can outright lie and it's unfair to call them on it.
But, as entertainment, they can get high numbers AND they are on something called "Fox News Channel" so ha-ha! Fox News has more viewers!
See how easy it is? George Orwell would be proud (but not surprised)
A newspaper comic strip, critiquing the state of network television news? The irony is found to be amusing by myself.
word veri: neonci. The website of the former New England Observer-Newsday Clarion-Intelligencer, which used to be four distinct print publications a century ago, but now exists only as an online outlet for terrible syndicated content.
Kip-
There's apparently actual official ways to make pancakes in the Nordic countries.
I got a crash course on Finnish ones.
But Swedish ones... are they socialistally delicious? Are they taken from their makers by the government and distributed to the lazy poor to stop them from eating bootstraps?
@exanonymous, I was going to guess they were a conspiracy of the oppressive union of lingonberry growers, who impose their will on the helpless, compliant Swedish people.
Crud, if I keep this conversation up I'll have to sneak out to the IHOP and order a small plate of the things.
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