Blogs, Mulling it over
Comic causes a stir but will stay on the page
Posted on Aug 23, 2009 by Lyle Muller.
An old controversy arose last week, thanks to cartoonist Bruce Tinsley.
He’s the unashamed conservative cartoonist who draws “Mallard Fillmore.” His Wednesday, Aug. 19, comic rankled some readers and four of them called or sent an e-mail to let me know about it.
Truth is, his comics rankle more than just those who took the time to complain, whether last week or any other day. His comic is an in-your-face conservative view of politics and lifestyles. It particularly hammers away at what Tinsley considers to be the left-wing, agenda-carrying, liberal-lapdog mainstream news media.
The offending comic last week showed President Barack Obama saying, “Despite a few setbacks, I’m still determined to get rid of your old clunkers…” and then, “…with my health-care plan.” He is holding a photo of an elderly lady. Grandma. Get it? As in controversial and disputed claims such as those stated by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) earlier this month that a proposed government-led health care program could determine “we’re gonna’ pull the plug on grandma.”
The depiction of either a U.S. president or the cartoon, in general, referring to an elderly lady as an old clunker offended some people. “In today’s paper, this unfunny ‘cartoonist’ whom I usually glance at and wish I hadn’t, has gone beyond stupid and unfunny, to sick, twisted, insulting and disgusting,” one person wrote in an e-mail while noting that she and her husband were canceling their subscription.
This kind of complaint gets lodged from time to time about a comic strip that takes a strong point of view. Beetle Bailey has been the target of complaints through the years for its depiction of women. The same is true of Wizard of Id. Conservatives lambaste Doonesbury as favoring liberals, although that argument ignores the job Garry Trudeau does on liberals’ open wounds.
Earlier this year The Gazette experimented with putting Doonesbury and Mallard Fillmore on the Opinion Page. The fit was OK but we decided to move them back to the comics page in order to make more room for letters to the editor.
This will disappoint people who do not like Tinsley’s acerbic duck but the strip will stay on the comic page in the foreseeable future.
I’m not particularly a fan of the strip. It lacks subtlety and often doesn’t strike me as funny. I reveal this solely because you are wondering. It doesn’t alter my feeling that a newspaper should provide room for diverse voices if it is going to reflect all of its readers.
Political viewpoints are nothing new to comics pages. Some of the most famous cartoons ever printed had political messages: Pogo, Li’l Abner, Bloom County (which was drawn for a time in Iowa City when cartoonist Berke Breathed lived there) and the aforementioned Wizard of Id, for example.
I talked with Erma Lam, 81, of rural Springville about this last Wednesday afternoon. We talked about the usual things you’d expect in such a conversation, me saying the conservative voice was important for diversity and she saying she didn’t like the comic.
“I object very strongly to the Mallard Fillmore comic and especially today’s. I think it’s disgusting and degrading of our president,” she said in our conversation.
“It’s not uplifting or funny or anything. It’s just degrading,” she said. “I think it’s offensive to thoughtful people.”
It was a heartfelt response to the comic from someone I found to be, in our short phone conversation, thoughtful and I appreciated hearing from her. So I gave her the last word.
I also find Mallard Fillmore to be unsubtle and unfunny. It seems more snide, in a slightly sickening way than it does funny.
YOU HAVE TO HAVE TUNNEL VISION TO NOT SEE THE HUMOR IN MALLARD , EVEN IF YOU DON'T AGREE WITH HIS PHILOSOPHY. DO NOT DENY US A LITTLE HUMOR. SOME DO NOT GET THE AMERICAN NUANCE.
I don't see how her not seeing the humor in it could affect whether or not you do. Don't be so manipulative.
I hate to be the one to tell you, but you don't have a sense of humor, so nobody can really deprive you. Edog is right, you are just being manipulative which is expected in someone with your type of personality.
Love that Duck! And how fitting that Doonsberry is on the left side of the comics page and Mallard on the right.
The duck has a better sense of humor that some people do.
Get a life and let the duck live!
Daffy Duck is funny, Donald Duck is funny, Mallard is a pompous, proselytizing, puffed up piece of poultry.
this paper always endorses repubs. fat chance they would remove a death panel cartoon. However I saw on the morning shows Sunday that the repubs want to cut medicare. Thats repub speak for pulling the plug on granny. I wonder if Chuck will word it that way??
I see that Heathcliff has been deprived in his live of examples of real humor, or he would know the difference.
Coming from a liberal that's about what I would expect you to say……..
What did I say? Not a shred of humor, I think I'll be a liberal, it's less consti pating
I've always liked Mallard because he usually calls a spade a spade. His humor is often wry, very often pointing out the irony of the liberal worldview, but also very direct. It is 80% a political cartoon as is Doonesbury, so one must look at it from that angle; I find many of the political cartoons on the opinion page to be offensive. However, for someone to cancel their paper over one cartoon is a wee bit over-reacting. Even if it was a daily cartoon the person didn't like rather than just the one, cancelling for that reason seems to me to be cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. I can think of a whole lot better reason to cancel a newspaper subscription!
I don't find Doonesbury all that funny either. I do like 'Get Fuzzy".
mallard is not funny; in fact, it is extremely mean-spirited. if mallard represents the way conservatives view the middle class in America, there is very little chance that I would ever support conservative initiatives……
Wonder where all of the comments in favor of Mallord went??
Are we in Denmark? To get outraged about a cartoon is ridicules. Find something better to do!
what if, someone had put a picture of the Republican Icon, Ronald Reagan or Dick Cheney, or the Idiot King George II on the photo in the cartoon? Would that have upset any of the individuals that say to just, 'get over it?'
Only in America… are people too apathetic to do anything about real injustices and actual government malfeasance… but are outraged that a comic said something they don't like!
If you don't like Mallard Fillmore, don't read it. It's not like you're going to be quizzed on it later. You can skip all the material that has deeper meaning and go right to the shallow fluff like "congrads jenni on turning 20 and graduating beauty college!".
If you dont like it DONT READ IT!!! People should stop looking for stuff to complain about and just worry about themselvs!