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I’m beginning to see the problem

Ted Rall can’t draw and isn’t funny. This is surprising because he apparently had this comic strip. I kind of thought being funny and being able to draw were important characteristics of people who did comics. I now know what one of the the problems is. He apparently can’t distinguish humor from facts. Jeffy Weffy has a Dowdified a humorous quote from Glenn Reynolds and Rall has used this quote to slam Glenn.

The fact he can’t identify other people’s humor may explain why he isn’t particularly funny. However, I have no idea why he can’t draw.

14 Responses to “I’m beginning to see the problem”

  1. tgirsch Says:

    Rall’s comic is every bit as funny as Day By Day.

  2. SayUncle Says:

    Humor is in the eye of the beholder. Rall is not funny at all. He has never made me laugh outloud once. And i don’t say that because Rall is a leftist comic, i say it because he’s not funny. I like the boondocks and the onion, both tend to be leftist but they’re funny.

  3. tgirsch Says:

    SayUncle:

    That was sort of my point. I don’t find Rall funny, either. I’ve read a couple of dozen episodes of Day By Day and never gotten so much as a chuckle. But a lot of people in the blogosphere seem to really like it for whatever reason.

    As in your case, it’s not that Day By Day rightist humor, it’s that it’s not funny. Maybe the episodes I looked at just weren’t the best ones.

    As for other leftist strips, This Modern World makes some good points but isn’t what I’d call “funny.” Ditto for Doonesbury.

    Right-leaning humor sites are hit and miss, but I’m not familiar with too many right-leaning comics.

  4. Xrlq Says:

    I got a chuckle out of the Day by Day mini-series where that chick got named in a paternity suit. The only unfunny part is that under Kalifornia’s wacky “deadbeat dad” laws, it could almost happen in real life. But as a general rule, while I often agree with the ideas being expressed in that strip, I rarely find it particularly funny. And the Onion pieces I like the best are, by and large, the least political ones. During the run-up to the Iraq war, they had a series of pieces that were increasingly whiny, and not the least bit funny. I think it is always difficult, and sometimes impossible, to make a serious point and be funny at the same time.

  5. Xrlq Says:

    Also, for the record, I don’t really think that Ted Rall has ever read my blog, let alone lifted my fake Glenn quote from it. The “Glenn Reynolds lives in his mother’s basement” meme, and Glenn’s refutation of the same, were both around for some time before I joined the Alliance. Without the preexisting meme and denial, I would have had nothing to dowdify.

  6. bjbarron Says:

    Kevin

    I sent you Ted Rall’s predictions for 2004 in case you missed them.

    My personal favorite…

    Howard Dean will win the nomination Hands Down!

    What a maroon.

  7. tgirsch Says:

    Xrlg:
    And the Onion pieces I like the best are, by and large, the least political ones. … I think it is always difficult, and sometimes impossible, to make a serious point and be funny at the same time.

    What about this (Welfare reform)? Or this (Iraqi leadership)? Or this (Bill of Rights)? Or this (Jobs & economy)?

    But my favorite in recent memory was this one on veterans benefits. The top photo is brilliant.

    And frankly, this one wasn’t exactly what I call “funny,” but looking at it a year later, it was downright prophetic, and a nice encapsulation of how the debate in the lead-up to the Iraq war went.

    For the record, lest I be accused of blatant partisanship (of which I’m guilty normally, but not this time), I thought a lot of the Onion stuff that was critical of Clinton Administration was hilarious, too.

  8. Thibodeaux Says:

    They made a lot of hay substituting George Clinton for Bill Clinton, especially whenever Bill was dropping bombs on people. Funk bombs!

  9. tgirsch Says:

    Bill Clinton dropped bombs on people? But.. but… Hannity told me that Clinton didn’t do ANYTHING to fight terror…

    😉

  10. Thibodeaux Says:

    Well, isn’t that one of the reason They Hate Us? Because we kept dropping bombs on them?

  11. Xrlq Says:

    Tgirsh: Here’s my take, which is worth every penny you paid for it:

  12. McWelfare. I’m not sure I see the point or the humor in this one. There’s just something here I’m not getting, sorry.
  13. Appointed by America. This one was very funny, but unlike most of the other stuff they did about Iraq, it didn’t strike me as particularly political. The joke was not really on pro- or anti-war folks per se, but on reality TV.
  14. Bill of Rights. This was pretty good, but would have been better if it hadn’t been so crassly partisan. Rather than have the Repubs do all the dirty work while the righteous, fredom-loving albeit undermotivated Dems sat by and did nothing, why not show a little more bipartisanship? Let a Repub offer the original draft, but then have a Dem introduce the amendment that eliminates the Tenth Amendment, excludes political and religious speech from the First Amendment, tacks on a “ha, ha, just kidding” clause to the Second, etc.
  15. Jobs and Economy. As with the last, it was funny, but probably would have been funnier if it had been less one-sided. For example, it’s great to have Bush call for the creation of new shitty jobs, but why not also provide some background on the shitty jobs that need to be replaced because our global economy has already taken most of our traditional shitty jobs overseas?
  16. Veterans’ Benefits. This one is the exception that proves the rule. Both parties are equally guilty of screwing veterans, but Repubs are much more known to “rally around the troops,” ergo, this joke works much better on them. A more balanced version of this article would have been fairer, but less funny.
  17. Point/Counterpoint. I don’t know why you call this prophetic; not one of the peacenik’s predictions has come occurred, nor even close. More importantly, though, none of these statements are remotely funny. The “rebuttals” were mildly amusing, but would have been more so if the reader didn’t get the sense he was being beaten up with a serious point. If they were doing comedy right in that piece, they could have just as easily had the pro-war guy make a list of dire predictions about what will happen if we don’t act quickly, and then have the anti-war guy respond with all the “no, it won’t” non-rebuttals. As an added bonus, that version would almost certainly be more entertaining today, as the most dire of the pro-war guy’s predictions would have turned out to be more obviously wrong.

    A lot of the stuff about Clinton was funny, too, of course, but many involved dirty jokes which were funny for reasons unrelated to politics (e.g., “Clinton feels nation’s pain, breasts”). Others, like the one about deploy vowels to Bosnia, were not political at all.

  18. Thibodeaux Says:

    From the Onion’s “Bill of Rights” parody:

    “The Bill of Rights was written more than 200 years ago, long before anyone could even fathom the existence of wiretapping technology or surveillance cameras,” Ashcroft said. “Yet through a bizarre fluke, it was still somehow worded in such a way as to restrict use of these devices. Clearly, it had to go before it could do more serious damage in the future.”
    That’s an argument that sounds vaguely familiar…

  19. tgirsch Says:

    Xrlg:

    Mostly your points are well-taken, but some notes:

    McWelfare: C’mon, the “Did Somebody Say Welfare” pic is brilliant.

    To me the “Appointed by America” thing was as much a slam against the unpreparedness of the Bush Administration to fill the power vacuum in Iraq as it was about reality TV.

    Re: Bill of Rights, in fairness, this, from the Clinton era.
    Re: Jobs and economy, mostly agreed, but you still ignore the difference between good-paying shitty jobs and shitty-paying shitty jobs. 😉

    Re: Point-counterpoint: Not one prediction has come true? “This war will not put an end to anti-Americanism; it will fan the flames of hatred even higher.” Uh, okay, I don’t know what dream world you live in, but world opinion of the US has plummeted since we started this war. “It will not end the threat of weapons of mass destruction” It has not ended that threat. “it will harden the resolve of Arab states to drive out all Western (i.e. U.S.) influence” So far, this seems to be happening, too. Seems like the “peacenik” has a pretty good track record, so far.

  20. Xrlq Says:

    “Putting an end to anti-Americanism” is a straw man, no one ever claimed it would do such a thing. Fanning the flames? How so? So the Euroweenies don’t like us. What else is new?

    As to the war in Iraq “hardening the resolve” of Arab states to drive out western influence, you have got to be shitting me. Go ahead, prove me wrong; just name ONE Arab nation that welcomed western influence with open arms up until around this time last year, only to suddenly start shunning us because we wiped out an Arab “strongman” who turned out not to be so damned strong after all.

Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.

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