L.A.Times Picking Up Wingnut Comix ("Mallard Fillmore" & Other)

[UTUSN]

Gee, this wingnut is "fascinated" that people's buttons get pushed over race issues.

*******QUOTE*******

.... ...420 newspapers — it debuts Monday in The Times — in which his unabashedly right-wing cartoon has been canceled and later reinstated dozens of times over its decade-long syndication. Tinsley's black-inked alter ego has gotten him fired and made him the target of bags full of hate mail, even death threats. ....

But nothing brings in the hate mail, Tinsley said, as when he takes on race and gender issues. In the past year, he did one series espousing his view that black children had overly indulgent television watching habits and another one opposing affirmative action programs at the University of Michigan.

"I'm fascinated by the way otherwise rational people get about race," Tinsley said. "To say that the son of a black doctor and lawyer who make over $300,000 a year get a break over an Asian kid whose parents are janitors is racist in the worst way to me." ....

...Newspapers today are trying to balance political voices on the comic pages, adding another conservative one called "Prickly City" by Scott Stantis, which The Times will start running next month. ....

********UNQUOTE*******

[ugarte]

1. Pressure works

The right wingers know how to bring it. If only the left were as well organized...

[TlalocW]

2. Even if I were conservative...

I wouldn't find Fillmore funny. Over 90% of his strips end the same way - a close-up of the duck's face (which always has one eyebrow raised) thinking of some sarcastic conservative response to what just happened in the previous panels.

TlalocW

[central scrutinizer]

3. don't worry

Mallard Fillmore is so stupid and repetitive and boring and predictable and uncritical that it actually works against the conservatives. He will take one hackneyed cliche about liberals and basically repeat it day after day after day. Meanwhile Doonesbury is fresh every day and often pokes fun at both sides of the political spectrum.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

6. Yep...

... right wing fundies had a campaign to get Cal Thomas (Falwell's former speech/sermon writer) included in the Sioux Falls ArgusLeader op/ed page. They caved in and put Thomas column in the paper once or twice a week. I haven't seen a Cal Thomas column in the ArgusLeader in six years. Why? I don't know. I don't think Cal Thomas gained too many new fans.

[mark0rama]

4. The Lame Duck's sole reason for existence...

...is as "counterprogramming" to deflect criticism that newspapers run Doonesbury. King Features, distributors of the strip, actually use that as a selling point: "If you get complaints about Doonesbury, buy this strip too, to show readers that you have balance on the comics page."

If I were a cartoonist, I'd be awfully discouraged that my strip is being sold in that way, but whatever. I'm sure he's just happy to be paid for his efforts.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel carries it, but right underneath they have the brazen and very funny "Boondocks" to wash that rancid mallard-y taste out of my mouth!

[LTR]

5. Well, the comic absolutely sucks anyway

He probably doesn't give a shit about artistic integrity.

Likely, he wants to piggyback on the efforts of quality work like Doonesbury and Boondocks.