You are all plebians

A while ago I began to notice a tendency for writing longer comments on other people's posts than the actual posts I was writing. So I vowed that next time I was inspired by someone else's blog, instead of plopping my long-windyness on their blog, I would pollute, ahem, fertlise my own.





On the thread for my last post, which received more comments than things I post which contain actual words, Adam Y chortled knowingly at my threat to begin writing about internet comics in order extinguish the last remnants of my readers (Adam himself is an internet comictission). I don't use this threat lightly. I know what poison comics are to readerships and also the frustration of trying to explain how good they really are.

I used to write a shitload of articles for my uni newspaper, and they were mostly really well received - the editors would tell me what a good job I was doing, people would stop me and tell me they liked my article, girls would offer me much sex in these elaborate fantasies I would concoct in between wanking and writing more articles for the paper ... except for the one week when I submitted an article giving a brief run-down on my favourite internet comics of the day.
Silence.
Utter silence.
"Did you get my article?"
"Yep."
"Oh."
"Anything else?"
"Um ... did you like it? What did you think?"
"It was good."
"Right..."



People are boringly short-sighted when it comes to comics. I'm bloody serious when I say that they're better than poetry, because they ARE poems, but they're illustrated, which makes them more difficult to do than simply being able to type and they're funny, which makes them much much more difficult than droning on about daffodils or broken hearts or the war. They're a fusion of two very difficult-to-master talents: art and comedy. Internet comics add another fortifying dimension to this duo that can be found in the mantra of every half-way successful internet comic: update regularly. In other words: keep working. Any artist experiencing any kind of success is doing so because they practise their art every single day. That's what makes them so good - just take a look at PhD or Penny Arcade. This is true art people!

But, I know I'm not preaching to the choir - I'm preaching to the frigging dust bins outside. I was so excited when my copy of the Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker turned up in the Amazon box the size of a microwave oven that I told everyone I saw. Blank stares. If I had bragged about receiving the Complete Collection of Type Faces I would have at least garnered a few interested questions, such as: "What's that?" and maybe "How did you get in here?"

Years ago, a whole bunch of close friends and I were out to see a movie. We were a group who had grown up together - close-knit, caring, loving, sharing. We are at the ticket counter, deciding which picture to see. One is a ye olde period piece about knights'n'jousting made by Hollywood, the other is an animated feature film. That pack of morons were actually about to lay down cash to go into A Knight's Tale, simply because the other movie was a cartoon. You know - kiddy stuff? I literally had to barricade the Knight's Tale box office with my body and force those brainless boobs I call my closest allies to go and see Shrek. Was I wrong? Sadly, this is a trick question, because I was not wrong and if you answered "Yes, you were wrong, you should have let those poor dears in to see Heath Ledger smashing up other dandy's lances to modern rock music", then you are also a foolish person and are wrong.

Shrek brought subversive pop culture to the mainstream in a way that The Simpsons have done for years and that Disney never could or will. It was highly referential - everything from WWF to Indiana Jones to Eddie Murphy's Delerious made it in there. They called a main character Fuckwad in a movie rated for children and got away with it. And yet, cartoons are still seen as simple childish mush.
Cartoons and comics haven't been childish mush since 1990 when Homer first throttled Bart, along any relevance Hanna-Barbara had to do with anything.

But back to my beloved comics. They shall be studied - mark my words - they shall be studied as microcosms of meaning and humour for many years to come.




















***
GTH - No one is losing any points for stabs in the dark. However - no one is gaining any points for guessing flags either. Adam Y takes away the points for his hilarious story about punching himself in the face.