"Prickly City" in a league with "Doonesbury?"

[Cyrano]

My local paper started running the comic strip "Prickly City" about a year ago. It totally lacks humor and is as subtle as an O'Reilly rant.

I don't so much object to the strip as the fact that they felt the need to put it on a separate page next to "Doonesbury." Is this some kind of "fair and balanced" crap?

Gary Trudeau has been at it for decades and few would deny his genius. He's won one Pulitzer Prize and deserves another for this year's running story on B.D. losing a leg in Iraq.

I wrote a complaint letter when the paper first placed it there, but it didn't do any good.

Tin hat time: Do you suppose there's some kind of plot to blur the line between genius and wingnut propaganda?

[YOY]

1. I've never even heard of "Prickly City"

and if it as lame as it sounds then there is no need to do anything...

[Cyrano]

2. I think it's in about 800 papers now. That's a lot.

[YOY]

4. Actually I just looked it up

It's about as funny and insightful as dishwater. Only "The Leftertons" beats it for lameness.

Definitely humor on a freeper level.

There is a reason why it's not in any DC paper I read...

[electropop]

7. "Prick City?"

"Pretty Shitty?" ick.

[Demit]

3. Horrible, horrible strip. Not a thing funny or smart about it.

If I were Garry Trudeau, I would be incredibly insulted.

[Bob3]

5. thank you're lucky stars it wasn't Millard Filmore

an unfunny, crudely drawn RW strip that spent most its time complaining about school taxes and women - which lead me to believe that the author of the strip was using it to vent his personal frustrations. I had a running war with the Long Island Newsday comic page editor about it. I moved so I'm sure if Newsday still carries it.

[JHB]

12. It does...

They have to have it to "balance" Doonsbury and The Boondocks.

[Bob3]

14. Why? I'll always wonder why.

Didn't bother the right wing to have all the radio shows so why comics. And Doonesbury has been pretty even handed about smacking down folly, and wrong doing no matter who is in office Republican or democrat. And there is some subtle and depth to Doonesbury - B.D. is no RW cardboard cut out straw man - he's a vet, now a wounded vet trying to recover the loss of a leg. There is human understanding in the characters.

Nothing like that exists either Millard Filmore or Prickly city. I've always imagined the creator of Millard Filmore sitting at his desk in his under-ware surrounded by pizza boxes bitching that no woman will date him and that he's paying school taxes even though he doesn't have any kids (living in that district - his ex wife has custody of his kids). Not a happy man by any means.

So one final thought - once * leaves office in disgrace does that mean they can drop these strips?

[JHB]

17. Because the Lib'rul Media is like Big Brother, or maybe mildew...

...it's insidious, gets Everywhere, and takes over Everything. Whereas "conservative media" is pre-defined as a heroic pocket of resistance against the Grey Stalinistic Mass.
It's almost completely a matter of (warped) perception, so don't look to logic for answers.

So it doesn't matter that Doonsebury and The Boondocks have ensemble casts, roam pretty widely over the landscape, and regularly have their characters hoist themselves by their own petard. All that mattered was that "their team" was mocked. That's why Mallard and Prickly City have the format they do: that of the Voice of (Conservative) Wisdom constanly beset by Vapid Fools and Hypocrites and other gross caricatures. It seems they only "get" a one-note pony like that.

[johnaries]

16. The local Nashville paper started carrying "mallard" a couple of years

ago, and they stated that they started running it to "balance Doonesbury". You're right, it's gawdawful.

I remember once it tried to say that scientists had found that the recent temperature rise was due to natural fluctuations in the sun - when in fact the report he referenced specifically stated that the recent temperature rise was NOT be related to natural fluctuations in the sun.

[seemunkee]

6. The Washington Post picked it up recently

although they don't separate it like Doonsbury they do put it next to another "liberal" view strip. At least it's not that stupid duck cartoon.

[On the Road]

8. Look on the Bright Side --

Doonesbury shines in a head-to-head comparison.

That's the kind of "balance" that works well for us -- like having a debate between someone like Howard Dean and an intarticulate, dim-witted RWer.

[gatorboy]

9. Doonsebury may have a liberal slant a majority of the time.

But if he feels the need to stick it to the left, he has no problem doing so.
Fillmore and these other strips on the other hand, would never stoop so low as to write with a balanced opinion. Their problem is what's wrong with a majority of the right: The can never admit when they're wrong.

I forgot to mention, Prickly City seems to have been lifted a bit from Calvin and Hobbes...None of the wit, though. :P

[nemo137]

10. The Trib has it right above Boondocks

you know, because I feel the need for a daily dose of "what the fuck?" at breakfast.

[zbdent]

11. I'd say that BC has to go on the Religion page

and printed only on Saturdays (in the Akron Beacon Journal) . . .

[Bob3]

13. popped over to a comics website to take a look

good god what an awful strip. Not only is the mindset that created it rancid, the strip itself is ugly to look at. Even what I assume is the main character - a young girl who speaks the RW line - is hideous to look at. I can only assume that the artist knows that this is ugly stuff and is subconsciously expressing it.

[YOY]

15. Try the "Leftersons"

It has got to be not only stupid but downright untrue in every way, shape, and form. The only thing funny about it is it's level of biased "bullshitiness".

http://www.leftersons.com/