Tom The Dancing Bug Blog

No one in here but us nerds.

Yes, ComicCon is a nonstop nerdathon, where nerds can get their nerd on in an atmosphere of total nerditude.  And who would that attract?  (Actually, that should be "WHOM would that attract"  NERD!)

Triumph the insult comic dog.  I happened upon this scene, and was able take a couple of cellphone shots of Robert Smigel smacking down one of the many, many nerds dressed as the Joker.  Watching the process live is a bit disillusioning, as Smigel asks a question, gets an answer, then pauses for minutes to look through the dozen or so typewritten and handwritten sheets with tons of pre-written material on them.  But I'll bet when they edit the hours of interviews down to the three minute bit, the best stuff is the material Smigel ad libbed in response to things that he never could have prepared for.

And I'll let you wait until this airs to find out what's going on here.

Last night, I caught the very, very final last Comedians of Comedy show, with a very funny video sent in by Zach Galifianakis, and stand up sets by the Human Giant guys, Doug Benson, Sarah Silverman, Maria Bamford, Brian Posehn and the great one, Patton Oswalt.  For reasons irrelevant to everything and everyone, it so happened that I wasn't in a very laughing mood as the show started, but when Patton came on, laugh I did.

More fish taco updates as they become available.

Greetings From San Diego

My first day at the San Diego ComicCon, and my mind is blown.

No, it my mind was not blown by the enormous size of the convention, nor the Darth Vader, Joker, or Star Trek costumes.

Nor was it meeting Sergio Aragones, although that was great.  I saw him on the convention floor, and walked right up and introduced myself.  I was pretty sure he didn't know who I was, but it was still great to tell him how he inspired me to become a cartoonist.  When he responded, "I probably ruined your life -- you were probably going to become a great fine artist," I was absolutely certain he had never seen my work.

Nor was it seeing many old friends and good buddies, although that was terrific (check out Shannon Wheeler's Postage Stamp Funnies!).

No, my mind was blown when I left the convention and went into a Baja Fresh fast food restaurant for the first time, looking for a snack.  I got a grilled fish taco, and it was $2.75, and it was perhaps the best fish taco I've found since I was in Baja, Mexico years ago, and believe me I've looked hard (probably in all the wrong places, granted).  In fact, the night before I had fish tacos at some Mexican joint in the Gaslight district (ten bucks), and they were execrable.   I walked out of the restaurant, walked half a block, and then did something I've never done before.  I turned around, went right back into the Baja Fresh, and ordered two more.  Dinner.

My kingdom for a Baja Fresh in Manhattan!

See you in San Diego

I'm off to the San Diego Comic Convention today!  I hope to see any of you who will be there.

Yes, I promise, I will draw again.

This week's comic, like last week's, was composed on the computer.  But I'm sweating over the drawing table for the next one, honest.

Patton's speech

Check out this amazing speech Patton Oswalt delivered to his alma mater high school graduating class.  If you're not careful, you just might learn something. 

This link is to his website, so you may have to scroll/navigate to the blog entry containing the speech.  It's dated 7.9.2008, and it's titled "AND NOW, THE ACTUAL SPEECH."

The guy is great.

(Sorry about the picture -- I couldn't resist.)

They keep pulling me back in...

Alright, two more things on the Obama New Yorker cover:

1.  I've read the sentiment (sometimes directed at me): "Shouldn't art be ambiguous?  Why should the 'point' of art be 'clear' to anyone?"  And my response is that of course art can be ambiguous.  But not this art in this case.  Maybe this would have been that type of art if the image had been drawn in crayon on a urinal, and when people asked the artist what he meant by it, he only gave them an inscrutable smile.

But when asked whether this art had a certain meaning, i.e., that Obama's a nutty leftist and possible Muslim, the artist and editor didn't for a moment allow for ambiguity:  they screamed to the rooftops, "NO!  This cartoon absolutely means X Y and Z!  That's what we intended, and nothing else!"

This art was explicitly intended to have a specific point.  The fact that it didn't successfully make that point -- and, in fact, led many to believe it was making an opposite point -- makes it failed satire.  Not an offense punishable by tar-and-feathering, not anything that will have any effect on an election, not a threat to the Republic.  But failed satire.

2.  I found Tom Tomorrow's post on this interesting, in which he shows a small example of satire, and then ironically adds more and more explicit cues as to his intent, wondering when enough cues have been added to satisfy the Satire Police.

But he stacks the deck when he makes his first example of satire an actual, successful bit.  Not only is the dialog discernibly sarcastic, but Osama says that he is Saddam's buddy even though Saddam is "an infidel dog."  See, he cleverly UNDERMINED the notion that the two could ever be friends by using WIT to signal his true stance. 

The cartoon actually analogous to the New Yorker cover would have simply shown Saddam and Obama with their arms around their shoulders, maybe with a "Best Friends Forever" framed needlepoint behind them -- totally unclear as to whether he thinks they're obviously friends or obviously not.  But Tom couldn't even bring himself to draw that -- he instinctively HAD to drop in some telling, ironic twist.  And that's not because he's a superlative cartoonist (although he is).  It's because he's at base level a competent satirist.

In this week's comic...

These two guys fight it out!!

The New Yorker's Real Contribution to Cartooning This Week:

This awesome interview with Achewood's Chris Onstad.  Man, that guy's good.

Why can I never remember to insist that my interviews be conducted by e-mail?

I don't think that means what you think it means...

I've tried to let this issue rest, but I can't resist commenting on this  -- I saw it on Salon (but now I can't find the link).

So David Horsey, an editorial cartoonist in Seattle did this comic, defending the New Yorker Obama-as-terrorist cover.  I think it makes the case for condemning the cover (as bad satire, not as an enemy of all that is good, you understand).

Without the National Review logo, I'd view this comic as a ham-fisted liberal attack on McCain, simply showing him as an aged, warmongering, constitution-burning etc. etc.  By placing the National Review logo on there, Horsey thinks he's signaling to the reader that the satiric intent here is obviously to mock the liberal's VIEW of McCain.

So, to make the analogy complete, he implies that it is the New Yorker logo that makes it clear to any sane reader that the Obama-terrorist cartoon is not satirizing Obama himself, but rather the right wing view of him.  So, really, The New Yorker logo is as integral to understanding the intent of the Obama cartoon as The National Review logo is to the McCain cartoon?  Blitt and The New Yorker meant to include the logo as part of the "message" of the cartoon, and would agree the cartoon doesn't work without it?  And is The New Yorker logo really the universal symbol for "here's the left-wing, liberal view of things?"

Frankly, it's hard to see Horsey's imaginary McCain cover as anything but mocking McCain himself (again, inartfully).  Even though it was Horsey's idea to signal the satirical target as critics of McCain by slapping the National Review logo on it, even with it there, I can't see the cartoon that way, even if I squint.  It just looks like an unambiguous shot at McCain.

The Bruno Controversy

Forget the Obama-Terrorist New Yorker cover controversy...

There's a NEW controversy over the interpretation of a cartoon -- Bruno the Philosopher Fish -- and it has the internet buzzing!  Alert the Huffington Post!  Fox News!  GoldfishFancy.net!!  What was Bolling trying to say?!  What was the true target of his satire?!  What are the implications to our nation?!  Our universe?!

Honestly, speculation about a fish philosophy comic is SO much more fun than speculation about a Muslim Obama comic.  Check out those comments (in Cosmic Variance)!

The comic is here.