I’ll start by not directing you to a particularly silly article by an academic type who explains why we’re all wrong to think political cartoons still matter, in the middle of which she mentioned political cartoons in the New Yorker, which made me guffaw and post a tweet about how ridiculous it was that she thought the New Yorker posts political cartoons.
Whereupon the gods repaid my hubris: This morning this Tim Hamilton cartoon appeared on the New Yorker’s on-line comics page, about the time I read the news today oh boy about how Ol’ Bonespurs had ordered, then disordered, an attack on Iran.
We don’t do politics Fridays, but, still, I’d like someone to pull up a record of what was said about the drone attack on Fox News yesterday so we could compare the timing there to the timing of Dear Leader’s order to commence the battle.
If I could be wrong about the NYer not publishing political cartoons, maybe I’m also wrong about us not having a Defense Secretary.
Who says you can’t have cabinet members that can only be seen on your television?
Or, y’know, in walls or in the flower beds outside your office window?
On to less fraught topics:
It’s the first day of summer and I think school is finally out everywhere except where they’ve gone year-round. And even those places take a break for two weeks or so about now.
I like Monty anyway, but if I hated the rest of it, I’d still tune in to follow the non-adventures of little Sedgwick Nuttingham III, who is sheltered from just about everything including his parents, as a result of which he lives in his own odd universe.
And seeing him pump his little fist in that first panel reminds me of when the jocks decided that the Doors were cool. Which, not coincidentally, was after the music freaks had determined that they were not.
The timing of that latter is a topic for debate, with true music snobs saying it happened with the release of “Strange Days” and others insisting it didn’t really happen until the band realized “Waiting for the Sun” was only half-filled and that they had to crank out stuff for Side Two.
Which in turn reminds me of a friend who reported that he’d been to a Mothers of Invention concert where their opening act was this outrageous unknown band called “Alice Cooper.”
I’m not sure this is the sort of thing Prufrock is supposed to ponder as he walks upon the beach.
Juxtaposition of the Week
(Bizarro, 6/20)
(Bliss, 6/21)
I kind of wish these two had hit the same day, but, on the other hand, hitting one day apart did allow for a moment of “Wait a minute, didn’t I already see this?”
Nothing to add. These things happen.
Okay, one thing to add: When you see “Martin” as a second byline along with Harry Bliss’s sig, it’s Steve. Just a bit of trivia, and, wotthehell, if Jim Carrey and Jake Tapper can be political cartoonists, why shouldn’t Steve Martin be a cartoon gag writer?
Worker Incentive Program
This Pearls strip reminds me of the Kirby Classic.
I only sold vacuum cleaners for a couple of weeks, but it happened to overlap the annual incentive weekend in Vegas, in which sales reps who had sold X-number of units won a trip.
It was a brilliant incentive, best demonstrated by one fellow who, on the first night they were there, found himself $5,000 up in 1972 dollars, which, according to this inflation calculator, is the current equivalent of $30,633.01.
So he went up to his room, watched television, ordered room service and stayed squirreled away from temptation.
Until they were checking out, at which point, well, come on, what harm could there be?
Yes, of course he did: Every last cent.
He came back to Denver one of the most well-incentivized sales reps in the office.
And those folks truly are incentivized.
That was then, this is now
My time at Kirby deserves its own story some time, but, today, I’m closer to this Pajama Diaries example of how graphic designers become dis-incentivized.
Clients frequently don’t understand the difference between “fair use” and “free use” and thank god it was never a lesson I learned the hard way.
But sometimes these problems are self-correcting:
When I was in local TV advertising, another guy’s client (thank god) wanted to duplicate one of those national commercials where the Jeep goes airborne off a sand dune.
Whereby he learned that there’s a reason local commercials cost a lot less to produce than national commercials.
One of those reasons being that, when they film national commercials, they pay to have the Jeeps upgraded with heavy-duty reinforced axles.
Fortunately, unlike this caller in Retail, the client sucked it up and didn’t try to shift the blame.
Speaking of unhappy consumers …
This Real Life Adventures made me wonder how long it’s been since Wise & Aldrich flew anywhere.
Or, at least, how long it’s been since they flew economy. I don’t remember the last time I was served anything but peanuts, pretzels or cookies on a flight, at least without having to buy it, and I think that’s mostly cold sandwiches.
Which point I will not argue, but here’s a related one: While you can buy food in economy, you can’t pay for a seat that tilts back more than about an inch and half, which kills my sympathy for cartoons (and complaints in general) about people tilting their seats way back on airplanes.
I rather suspect these poor, put-upon souls are flying in a different part of the airplane than I can afford.
Oh, horrors! This is salmon roe, not beluga …
When I was in TV, this Joe Sedelmaier commercial was current and held up as a model …
And since this is Friday, it’s okay for you to waste the rest of your day feasting on Joe Sedelmaier classics.
(At least, it better be okay, because, if you click on that link,
your workday is over anyway.)
Trump suddenly became deeply concerned for the lives of 150 Iranians, mostly soldiers, we are to believe.
And yet this great humanitarian somehow sleeps at night while tens of thousands of children are physically and sexually abused and will literally never see their families again, at his direction.
But on to lighter matters. Many people complain(ed) bitterly about flying Cubana, but every damn time they’d provide a pretty substantial sandwich, juice, cheese, a roll, and one or two desserts, and coffee or tea. That, and a Cristal or Bucanero for $1CUC or $1CAD, whatever you had on you, wasn’t half bad.
Having just returned from a one-day business trip to NY where I had to fly, IMHO now *everyone* is a second-class citizen on this tin cans.
I thought Tim Hamilton’s cartoon of the paratroopers was the best I’ve seen in years.