Back To The Funnies: Mallard Fillmore vs Jon Stewart

[Bark Bark Bark]

It is well-established to anyone with a frontal lobe who has seen his work that Bruce Tinsley is an ass.

You might be surprised how much of an ass he is, however...

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/mallard.asp?date=20050705

Read that strip, and continue through to Friday's.

Then check out Ubersite's take on it, which pretty much sums up my feelings.

http://www.ubersite.com/m/70078

Point is this: No reasonable person who read America: The Book thought anything contained within it was truthful. Anyone smart enought or ead the words was also smart enough to recognize it being satire. Nobody thought that Mallard Fillmore strip was real more than they thought the Doonebury strip was real more than they thought the foreword by Thomas Jefferson was real. It's understood that, just by the fact that the page these comics were features on was preceded by total bullshit, and all pages following it were total bullshit, that the page in question was also total bullshit. No one who isn't a fucking dumbass thought that Mallard Fillmore strip was real. They knew it was fake. They knew it was satire.

So that leaves two possibilities:

1. Bruce Tinsley can't discern truth from satire, and as such should not be allowed to have a nationally syndicated comic strip. This would make him a dumbass.

2. Bruce Tinsley knew it was satire, but expects his readers to believe anything he says, so if he tells them that The Daily Show had tried to pass them off as real Mallard Fillmore strips, that would undermine his audience's trust in a program that pushes opinions opposite of his. This would make him a prick.

If I had to choose, I would go with "prick." After all, his second caricature of Stewart (Friday) features even baggier eyes and a longer, more "hooked" nose than those of the first (Wednesday). It's not hard to figure out what Tinsley's tapping THERE; regular readers know he's a hardcore--if cowardly tacit--bigot, though he quickly waves minority characters around when it suits his purposes.

But "dumbass" is a good choice, to. I mean--another "Rathergate" reference? Holy crap, that's desperate--but not as desperate as Friday's "Jacko"-esque jab, making a half-hearted attempt to smear Stewart as a child molester (all in good fun, of course, I'm sure).

AND, Tinsley makes two huge mistakes.

(1) This whole week was a free advertisement for The Daily Show and America: The Book. Especially since Tinsley didn't print anything from the strip in question, whole or in excerpt, which would've been well within his rights. Now people are curious.

(2) In Friday's strip, Tinsley--through Mallard--openly admits that he puts words in people's mouths all the time. Mallard says, more or less, that Tinsley's signature is proof of falsehood. (Of course, Jon Stewart's name is all over America: The Book, which, by Tinsley's own argument, openly indicates the very parody Tinsley accuses Stewart of trying to "hide." Jesus Christ, my head hurts now.)

I've already got a copy, but I wrote to Tinsley ([e-mail]) in the guise of a new reader, indicating that I'd be buying America: The Book just to find out what he was peeing in his underwear over.

If you want to tease the monkey yourself, you can do likewise. Or for more fun (use a "disposable" e-mail address), you can pose as a member of the American Nazi Party and congratulate him on his stereotypical caricatures of "that little k*** Stewart." (If he responds, post it here, hah?)

Get back from vacation soon, Jon. This should be fun.

[roguevalley]

1. he was voted and hooted out of our newspaper

[Systematic Chaos]

2. The top link, to the strip in question, doesn't work

Either the site is down for maintenance, or it's been pulled. :)

[Bark Bark Bark]

3. Nope. Try This:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/

Go to "Comics & Games" under "Coffee Break" and look up MF* in the Comics menu.

*I just got that.

[JohnnyRingo]

4. I read his strip every day just to say "what an asshole". (out loud)

Then I get to go on with my day.

He usually has such a lead time that nothing he draws about is relevent anymore. (I expect him to cover Terri Schiavo soon).
It took him 3 months to figure out how to draw a likeness of Howard Dean after the "scream speech". Then he beat it like a dead horse as the world moved along.

Anyway, after reading his current whine about The Daily Show's book, (8 months after it's release) I had to flip through the book to see what he was talking about. (He forgets to mention)

The fake strip starts with a typical conservative complaint and in the last panel says something like "I forgot to write a punchline".

Sounded like Mallard Filmore to me. Hahahahahahaha

Can't he be sued for ripping off Daffy Duck?

[Bark Bark Bark]

6. He DID Tap Schiavo, A Little

He actually had the gall to describe America as "starving its weakest members to death."

That was the birth of my "poser" e-mail campaign; I wrote to thank him for supporting humane euthanasia; then I wrote to ask him how he could be as unpatriotic as "them blame-America-firsters;" then I wrote to thank him for making a stand against poverty, which forces so many Americans into starvation conditions. (Different addresses, of course.)

Bet I cured his constipation THAT night.

Oh, if only Stewart could get him on as a GUEST...

[Bark Bark Bark]

5. Alicublog's On It, Too--Plus MORE (Links)??

http://alicublog.blogspot.com/2005_07_03_alicublog_archive.html#112085439025398144

I see by his latest installment that Mallard Fillmore creator Bruce Tinsley does indeed think that a parody of his strip in Jon Stewart's America: The Book is meant "to deceive people into thinking it was a real one."

Originally I didn't see how anyone with brains enough to breathe could think that, but I understand better now that I've surveyed "Today's Toons" at Free Republic. How have I missed this before? It shall join Photoshop Phridays and overheardinny.com as one of my unmissable end-of-week delights.

Tinsley is here, of course, as are several lesser known artists bringing you the latest in anti-Kerry and anti-Kennedy/pro-torture gags.

Oh, HELLS no. Freeperville makes me physically ill. You may find amusement there, however.

Hey, check this out! There's no denying that Prick(ly) City's Scott Stantis is a right-wing bootlick--his take on Schiavo had the "liberal" animal character dressed as a judge trying to beat the little girl to death with his gavel in order to "put her out of her misery"...subtle, hah?--but THIS one is priceless.

http://www.uclick.com/client/sea/prc/2005/07/07/index.html

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. 2 major mistakes by Tinsley

1) He drew 4 consecutive cartoons without a joke, just a self-serving whinge

2) He proved that not only can't he make up a decent joke about something, he can't recognise jokes that other people make.

I think he's doing a great job of disqualifying himself as a cartoonist.

[shiva2999]

8. Right wingers aren't funny

Why?

Because to be truly funny you have to accept and embrace the absurdity of human existence.

That, of course, goes against everything the right believes in.

There is only one standard right wing joke. It goes...

"Hey, take a look at X. Aren't they stupid? Ha ha ha!"

Back on my home board we had the guy who does The Leftersons show up one day because I'd posted a critique that had shown up on a search engine.

Even the righties on the board told him he wasn't funny.

He went away with his tail between his legs.

[Gatchaman]

9. Mallard Filmore...

...preaches to an audience that would not read John Stewart's book, therefore, they do not know that the book is a parody, and that nothing in it is to be taken seriously. All they know is their beloved Wal-Mart wisely decided to make up their minds for them to prevent them seeing the "perverted" pic of the supreme court justices.