Toon In, Drop Out: The Golden Afternoon
This week had all sorts of really serious cartoons… Tibet, China and the olympics, Charlton Heston, which, as we all know, aren’t really funny. And then we had our Campus Issues! cartoons. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know it’s spring, so there will probably be some kind of fling (with - GASP! - alcohol). Then you’ve got your standard Room Draw! cartoon, your Controversial Campus Issue! cartoon (OMG, you mean I can’t transfer to Harvard?), and then a little good old-fashioned Douchebag! cartoon. And that’s only the beginning. The good stuff’s after the jump.
The Daily Pennsylvanian and the Daily Princetonian (Friday 4/4): “Shit, bro. The real world, like, bites.”
The Pennsylvanian and the Prince team up this week to gives us our recommended dose of sobering reality. The people-flowers in the Pennsylvanian’s cartoons took me back to the drug-induced dream-world of Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. Also, the flower-guy in the middle actually has no face. Also, judging by his offensively Jewish nose, Black Sambo lips, and ‘fro, the flower-guy on the left is some kind of Afro-Semitic mongrel. Affirmative action, anyone?
As for the Prince’s cartoon, a nice close-reading (P.S. Mariah Min… FAIL!) is in order. It appears that Real Life incarnate is actually the Grim Reaper and is coming to kill members of the class of ‘08. Except that Real Life is either too cruel or too chivalrous to murder them in their sleep. Even if this is intended to be metaphorical, I really can’t see how this insane conflation of themes is supposed to pan out. Is college a metaphorical life and graduation its subsequent death? Or is this the Grim Reaper’s brother, the Tool Reaper, who terminates college? Either way, this sort of inconsistency is what has us all arguing interpretations every morning at breakfast.
The Daily Princetonian (Thursday 4/10): WTF?! THIS IS NEVER WORKING!
How in the name of God’s taint this is related to the recent donation to the “Keller Center” (which I didn’t even realize existed) is lost on me. More importantly though, WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING HERE? I agree that the pop-up quote on the bottom is retarded, but this cartoon goes above and beyond. Let’s begin by saying, this guy is only marginally more than a stick figure. In fact, his distinguishing feature is his awesome hair (which seems to be the product of smashing electronic devices). So we get that an AB student can’t figure out how to use a computer, har-har-har, but why the hell is the ELE major smashing a tiny car with a sledgehammer? This cartoon’s Strenio-eque awfulness had me checking to make sure this wasn’t the third in his series of masterpieces.
Yale Daily News (Wednesday 4/9): Yale Sucks.
’Nuff said.
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April 11th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
yo i like your commentary, and i hope no one complains about the semitic-sambo comment. anyways, the car is because engineers have to complete car-lab in which they build a car that drives around by itself. and the AB isn’t smashing the computer because he doesn’t know how to use it. he’s smashing it because he is writing his god-awful thesis on it and is angry. it is students destroying what they have worked on to create.
April 11th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Destroying what they worked on (sic) to create? Well that doesn’t seem very intuitive. Go Princeton.
April 11th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
I want Donny to highlight Ivy dailies’ cartoons that were laugh-out-loud funny. I want something more than this sheepish arrogance that reeks of irony. I want positivity, damnit.
April 12th, 2008 at 2:08 am
Agreed, this section would be funnier if they actually just published the funny cartoons, rather than trying to make unfunny remarks about cartoons they don’t understand. “What is the ELE major doing to that car?! What’s going on here!?” C’mon, bros.
April 12th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Hey, I really do agree with you Defenders of Honor. I try to choose the best cartoon or two each week, like I did in my first post. It’s just that the last two weeks have had some god-awful cartoons. Hopefully future weeks will furnish some more positive material. But thanks for the input.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
There are NO funny cartoons in the Ivy League dailies. What are you, the three lone shills from the Ivy Cartoonist Union? Piss off already.
If a commenter needs a few sentences to explain a cartoon, it isn’t funny. Period. Quit arguing and do a better job next time.
Dear IvyGate: Keep skewering the lame-brained cartoons! One of these losers will surely be the next generation’s Jim Davis: creating pathetic Garfield-like cartoons that fade away into self-parody.
April 12th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Donny, your comments this week are worse than the medicore to bad cartoons. “offensively Jewish nose, Black Sambo lips, and ‘fro, the flower-guy on the left is some kind of Afro-Semitic mongrel” What is that if not projection? You would have been just as disgusted if the comic was too blandly pc. and while the cartoons linked in are medicore (and predictable), it’s not like we don’t already know that, gasp, most college cartoonists aren’t the next Bill Waterson. and “yale sucks, nuff said?” that’s just lazy.
April 13th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Less obscurity would definitely be an asset in this blog. P.S. Mariah Min fail? The cartoon linked was laugh-out-loud funny, which few cartoons in any Ivy League newspaper are, much less the Prince (save Hsia, of course). If you’re going to go out on a limb to criticize something, at least explain why. Surely you didn’t think it was an example of real close reading. Oh no, are you an indignant English major?
April 14th, 2008 at 9:20 am
@english major:
right on. analyzing a comic that way donny? you suck, nuff said
April 15th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Less obscurity? Could you be less obscure? What is obscure: the cartoons, the commentary, or something else? How is obscurity in and of itself problematic?
If any of these were laugh-out-loud funny, you must lack joy in your life. I found them painfully trite and naive.