The Washintonian profiles Washington Post humor columnist Gene Weingarten who is also co-writer of the comic strip Barney & Clyde.
Weingarten may also be the best writer in American journalism. He?s the only person to have won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing twice, once for the violinist story and once for a story about parents who accidentally leave their children in hot cars. And as amazing as those articles are, neither is generally considered his finest. That story, about a children?s entertainer, is as good a piece of writing as you?ll ever find tossed on your front lawn.
You might wonder why the best writer in American journalism would have fake poop as his Twitter icon. Or spend an inordinate amount of time making prank phone calls. Or concern himself with monkey sex, fake sneezes, or bacon taped to cats. As he once put it in a column, ?I mostly write about underpants.?
Weingarten is not a horrible person, but there may be something wrong with him.
Gene, who long before launching Barney & Clyde, has been a big fan of the comics. His weekly online chat, “Chatological Humor, aka Tuesdays with Moron,” often discusses comics.