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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

That damned Smartphone

What's Mallard raving about today?

Smartphones

Osama Bin Laden is dead...but Mallard has identified our new enemy! It's Steve Jobs and his nefarious iPhone.

That is until Mallard catches up with outrage over the White House inviting Common to a poetry jam. But remember, everyone, racism is dead.

18 comments:

DiR said...

Stupid phones, with their Gs and their movie chatting and their interspeed networkings.

To be fair, today's joke would KILL at the Denny's 4PM Open Mic Night.

Tog said...

Batshit's adopting the same position as Al Franken? Suddenly the upcoming Rapture seems all too plausible.

GINGRICH/PALIN '12!
...Because now more than ever, Merika Nubber Wun needs comedy candidates.

Randy said...

Funny, given the use of the thought balloon there, I would think he'd be more worried about cell phones suddenly developing telepathy. Especially if it would reveal closet racists for what they are.

Kip W said...

Mental telephony!

If he could maintain this level of humor, he'd be ready for a college newspaper job, but staying above one quarter ass makes his brain hurt.

exanonymous said...

It's a libertarian thing. At least, all the libertarians I know were complaining about it. Two months ago.

But don't tell them all this tracking is the result of a free market. That makes their heads implode. It's got to be the government's fault for some reason. They can't grasp the idea that in a free market, consumers might overwhelmingly choose not to be free.

Rootbeer said...

The thought bubble ruins this one.

I'm willing to believe that a smart smartphone would be able to hear what its owner says and respond appropriately (if disingenuously), and even identify that scenario as consistent with "humor".

I'm not willing to believe that a smart smartphone would be able to read its owner's mind.

doubleyouteeeff said...

Hey, that featureless black area in the top left is WAY better than the rest of the comic!

Frank Stone said...

Helpful hint, Brucie: Filling large areas with solid black is not the same thing as drawing.

Meanwhile, today's "Zits" featured a phone-related gag that was actually funny.

sffan12 said...

@FrankStone: I disagree. In fact, I think it's even worse.

Even the Baby Blues strip for today is better than Zitz. (And they're both co-written by the same creator, imagine that.)

rewinn said...

"Zits", "Baby Blues" and so forth are "better" than "Mallard Fillmore" by every metric (humor, artwork, writing, witty comments on the human condition, booksales, etc.) for the same reason that just about any fine artist is "better" than any "Soviet Realist" artist.

Mallard Fillmore, like the Soviet Realists, is political first, art second and usually never.

===

P.S. for an actually funny and politically important commentary on the iPhone etc., see "the agony and the ecstasy of Steve Jobs". This is a good and important program, combining excellent humor and entertainment with a political message sufficiently important to balance a whole year of "Mallard Fillmore"

Marion Delgado said...

I think Zits was funny too but it's obvious why Comics Casserole calls him "JERKemy"

sffan12 said...

Actually, "Zits" is even worse than the duck & even more polemic..do not assume there's not anything worse than Mallard, because I assure you, there is.

And when "assume" you make an "ass" out of "u" & "me".

CW in LA said...

I dunno, sffan. It's been many, many, many years since I was a teen-ager, and even so I find Zits' relentless theme of "Teenagers are worthless leeches on society" to be quite tiresome.

But worse than Mallard? That's like calling stinky breath worse than exploding diarrhea.

sffan12 said...

Oh, really?

Then allow me to introduce you to Dustin, the comic that replaced "Cathy" in many local newspapers. (Including mine.)

If anything, it makes "Zits" look good in comparison. And it's already surpassed the Duck in my 'strips I loath' dept.

Tog said...

Eh. I flipped through a couple of Dustin strips and quickly realized it was just another Unoriginal Generic Daily Slice O'Americana Comic Strip that wasn't worth the time.

It seems to be Zits In A Few Years, After Jeremy Stops Looking Like Some Sort Of Grunge Dork But Hey Everybody He's Unemployed! Edgy! ...Huh? Huh? How long does anyone think that's going to last?

Mallard Fillmore is agitprop and hate-filled talking-points regurgitation covered with a thin, unconvincing veneer of "independent" that has long outlived its glory days but still peddles the most unbelievable horseshit to the public, so it deserves any vitriol--and should be grateful for any pity--it receives. (Also, watching the artwork and lettering deteriorate over time is morbidly fascinating, like witnessing Louis Wain losing his mind to schizophrenia through his cat paintings or Hollywood conditioning Merika Nubber Wun!!1 to abandon its humanity through TV and theatrical torture-porn.)

There have been other such strips, but they don't garner much attention. (I don't even know or care if web-based trash like Day by Day still runs--not to mention Billy the Heretic or Diversity Lane*--but in papers State of the Union (AKA AAAH! WHO LET THIS N!@@$& IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!) went into a coma within a matter of weeks, and Prickly City...well, seriously, what reader gives two shits about that ugly, wishy-washy mess, regardless of their politics?

As for Zits...like many strips (Get Fuzzy being my favorite/most heartbreaking example**), it used to be hugely popular at one point then tossed its ass down into a rut and festered there until people began to become visibly angry at its mention.

Zits' rut is that Jeremy is a sociopath who is incapable of giving a damn about anything or anyone if he is not directly involved. Do Scott and Borgman really think people find self-centered, emotionally-detached teenaged jerks fascinating?

*"The 5 Circles Baffling Web Comic Hell," Cracked.com

**This is a personal opinion, not an accusation, nor an invitation to a squabble with anyone. If one still likes it, good for them. It did, at least, finally stir itself from the "talking head syndrome" that characterized it for a long, long time, but it's still long stuck in its "Bucky is ignorant, violent, and destructive! Satchel is mentally retarded! Rob is helplessly spineless!" rut and it used to offer a bit more than that. Did Conley become a shut-in or something?

I'M OFF TODAY! CAN YOU TELL?

CW in LA said...

See, I'd actually like as place to discuss at greater length how much Prick City sucks. I guess I'm not desperate enough for a blog like this one to start it myself, but I'd probably be a regular there if someone else started one.

Kip W said...

Tog, I got to see some Wain originals in London a few years back (part of a temporary exhibition on Bedlam). Despite the way LIFE magazine laid out selected works to show an orderly progression toward psychosis, I'm not so sure they prove their case. I think he was trying new things, and since he was already in an institution, he had time on his hands. He had problems, to be sure, but I'm not sure of the received wisdom about his mental deterioration being shown in those pieces.

It's a fascinating topic, though. I have that LIFE Science Library book, and it's one of their most interesting. For more, try The Discovery of the Art of the Insane, which introduced me also to Richard Dadd and Jonathan Martin, whose were also represented in a small portion of the exhibit.

(As an ironic footnote, here's a postcard image from his happier days, at my flickr page.)

rewinn said...

It's Friday, and if you're getting ready to get Raptured tomorrow, please remember to dress well. You men in kilts - keep your legs together!
Top Five Tips On How To Dress For The Rapture