CSotD: Friday Funnies with (Con)sequential Art

There’s a fair amount of repurposed classic art going around paying tribute to the lockdown, some better than others.

Many people have been riffing on Hopper’s Nighthawks, for instance, but it’s already a portrait of emptiness to begin with. You can only make his point more obvious.

But while American Gothic has also had plenty of parodies, they generally take the form of putting different people in the place of the iconic couple.

Patrick Blower quarantines them, which is particularly effective since the original was a fairly tight portrait.

Just as Ben Jennings reversed Seurat’s crowded scene on La Grand Jatte, Blower does a bit of jiu-jitsu, turning Woods’ closeup into a far-away.

 

I’m not sure at what point works as iconic as American Gothic or Un dimanche après-midi à l’Île de la Grande Jatte become familiar enough to merge into pop art, though Nighthawks is specifically such and Norman Rockwell fits in there, intentionally or not.

But Richard Scarry is definitely popular rather than high-culture, and Dylan Horrocks does the flip here, turning a signature busy-ness into shocking emptiness.

It’s similar to the Seurat, only more jarring because Scarry’s crowds were in constant motion, while Seurat’s crowd was serene. And, in this case, “jarring” is the point.

And while Jennings asks us to be culturally literate, Horrocks tickles our inner toddler.

 

I haven’t decided — probably never quite will — how I feel about Ruben Bolling‘s riff on Saul Steinberg’s famous New Yorker cover.

The point of the original was that Gothamites have no concept of life beyond the Hudson, which was a bit of playful self-mockery for them and a declaration of the obvious for those elsewhere in the Empire State (or known universe, for that matter).

Here, Bolling points out — I think accurately — that things are more acute in the crowd of the city, with the virus much less dense out in the hinterlands, except for a few of the cities that New Yorkers can only vaguely place.

I’ve seen people say on-line that they can’t get six feet away from anyone else, and it’s likely true on the streets there but it sure isn’t true here.

And I really don’t know how our grocery stores measure up to theirs in terms of crowds and density, there being likely a per-capita equalizing factor involving the number of stores and number of people.

However, as further directions for how to behave come out, there is the fact that they often originate in the Asphalt Jungle where, as Bolling suggests, all those viruses congregate, or the equivalent in DC, Boston, LA and other urban centers.

Which is to say I’ve always been glad not to have to confine my dogs to Boston’s busy Esplanade, and I suspect I don’t need a mask when the 1.4 mile woodsy trail we walk might contain a half-dozen other people at any moment, or a full dozen when it’s super-busy.

We’ve got 34 confirmed cases in our county, which has a population of 89,386. NYC has 4,500 cases among 8,623,000. I’m not sure the difference in numbers offsets the difference in sample sizes.

What I’m sure of is that I’m confining my outings to the park and, less often than usual, the grocery store.

And that I’m still not sure how I feel about Bolling’s take on Steinberg.

 

Elsewhere on the Funny Pages

Watson echoes my thoughts about the Great Outdoors, and it’s a shame that New England beaches are being closed down, apparently because of a fear of crowds. It ain’t that warm yet, folks, and solitary walkers are far more the norm.

Jim Horwitz has the advantage of being a web cartoonist, so he can be far more current than syndicated cartoonists who have to deal with deadlines.

 

Terry Beatty posted that this Rex Morgan story arc was written and drawn four months ago, well before this singer’s vocal issues might have appeared topical.

We’ll see where the story leads us, and perhaps it will be a bit of luck.

 

But Arctic Circle certainly fell on the other side of luck with this pre-pandemic gag. Worst part is that Alex Hallatt is no fan of feedlots and was portraying the cow as foolish.

But, jeezizmaryanjosiff, not suicidal.

Done as intentionally current commentary on cruises and them as takes them, this would have been perhaps not unjustified, but a bit harsh.

Quite sure it wasn’t done on purpose, but there it is anyway.

 

I have no idea how far ahead Joe Martin works, but this Willie ‘n Ethel seems accidentally current.

The strip is based on Willie being a slacker, and a lot of the appeal of the strip is that we’d all be Willie if we could get away with it.

Now we can.

 

Jimmy Johnson is up to speed. Arlo and I are both watching old football games, and the real trick is not to think too much about it.

The other day, I was watching one and suddenly realized that the reason it was featured was because this was the one where the rookie QB won the game with last-minute heroics.

I watched anyway, but I’d spoilered it for myself.

Though I DVR’ed Citizen Kane the other day and I’ll watch that even though I know the meaning of “Rosebud.”

Fact is, I knew that the first time I saw it, and I haven’t forgiven Charles Schulz yet. (If you’ve seen the movie but not the strip, scroll down to Dec 9, 1973. Not cool, Sparky.)

 

And Wiley mocks the poor, displaced literary geniuses who can only create great works in the midst of great camaraderie and overpriced coffee.

Hemingway wrote at home, first thing in the morning, and only became a bon vivant after his creative work was done for the day.

Just sayin’

 

In Jules et Jim, Jules draws a picture of an old lover on a tabletop and Jim offers to buy it, but I don’t think that sort of thing happens in cafes often enough to be significant.

 

Finally, this literary segue

Real Life Adventures suggests this slick musical treat:

(Cover by Ron Cobb)