It is to laugh
Following a link first from cartoonist Tom Tomorrow’s website, then to Lloyd Dangle’s, I finally arrived at the source of a screedy little denunciation of alt weekly cartoonists and their current economic plight that comes courtesy of one Ed Decker, a columnist for the San Diego CityBeat.
Decker writes in reaction to an editorial on the website of Red Meat cartoonist Max Cannon, justifiably despairing of the economic iceberg America’s alt weeklies have struck and how cartoonists have been the first ejected overboard, despite the fact that reader polls consistently prove that the comics in weekly papers are a top draw. Cannon’s lament is thoughtful and not at all hostile to the industry, which makes Decker’s riposte all the odder for its sneering tone. Writes Ed:
“And Max, dude, did you actually say that you “slaved†over your work? Are you for real? You’re not picking cotton under a blazing Mississippi sun, man. You’re not digging ditches in pools of raw sewage. You draw cartoons. If cartoon-drawing is anything like column-writing, you sit at your desk with your wine and your weed—Big Sonic Chill dripping its pollen from your speakers—and an expensive computer doing all your heavy lifting.”
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Ed Decker |
As a cartoonist, I can assure you that the work has some added challenges that Decker does not to have to contend with, such as pruning shitty metaphors like “pollen dripping from speakers” from my drafts before they reach the public. Otherwise, writing and cartooning for alt weeklies are part of a common artistic grind, and you would expect more sympathy from someone laboring to make his own name this way.
Not so Decker. His “open letter” screams jealousy like a banshee at an opera house. “Let me see if I can’t find a waah-kerchief for you to bawl into”, “don’t tell me about hard times, Mr. Maximillian McWhinyFace!”, “If I were a ditch-digger or a cotton-picker, and I saw your donate button—oh yeah, I’d donate something all right,” is just the dross of his pith.
And all this in response to a plea that comic strip fans contact their local weeklies and express how much they enjoy the comics featured therein. Hardly some elitist propaganda juggernaut.
One steaming load of Decker’s odiferous prose will be enough to assure you that Ed is not benefitting from any such calls on his behalf, and this is doubtless the motivation for his over the top denunciation of fellow freelancers who, after all, are just trying to make a buck in a tough business. Decker’s double-barrel assault on the modestly successful Max Cannon and Tom Tomorrow, his bitchy pronouncement that the fruits of his own talents “can’t even buy me a small bindy of coke and an hour with a bottom-dollar street hooker” are like a planet-sized window into the soul of a failure. So your wings are starting to melt? That will teach you to aim for the sun, Icarus! Welcome back to Planet Crap with the rest of us blow flies!
Ed, I know you are reading this because I sent you a link and because anyone throwing out this much red meat (pardon the pun) could only be doing it to hoover up the short burst of attention that a creative bottom feeder never earns from the work he is actually proud of.
So let me suggest that you actually demonstrate some solidarity with the brothers of your profession instead of evacuating your bowels on them. Because if an alt weekly can’t spare three column inches for Max Cannon or Jen Sorenson, how long do you think its going to take an editor to realize that someone who pens a line like “Maximillian McWhinyFace” isn’t going to be rushing out to buy Pulitzer polish any time soon?
Sir, yes, indeed, I have dropped by your post because I am enjoying the short burst of attention that my column seems to have attracted, just as you probably will enjoy the burst of attention you will receive from posting this link onto the comments section of that article.
However you are wrong to think that I wrote the column in question FOR the attention. Not true, I wrote it because I feel this way, the attention is just a bonus.
Allow me to respond to your post one issue at a time:
1) “Cannon’s lament is thoughtful and not at all hostile to the industry, which makes Decker’s riposte all the odder for its sneering tone.â€
I never said Cannon’s lament was hostile to the industry. I said that it was whiny and complainy, at a time when nearly EVERYBODY is going through what Cannon is going through, and your average Joe has it MUCH harder than your average cartoonist (and yes, columnist too). As for my sneering tone, yeah, sorry about that. I like to sneer some times.
2) “As a cartoonist, I can assure you that the work has some added challenges that Decker does not to have to contend with, such as pruning shitty metaphors like “pollen dripping from speakers†from my drafts before they reach the public.â€
Yeah, in retrospect, I wish I would have clipped the “pollen” bit, but, but I find it interesting that someone who would write, “steaming load of odiferous prose,†and “screams jealousy like a banshee at an opera house†would object.
3) speaking of jealousy, hell yeah I’m jealous. Not in the “Wringing my hands,” and “bulging neck vein” kind of jealous, but the normal jealousy that goes with observing others enjoy greater success in a similar field as your own, such as syndication in dozens of papers. I guess that was the point of the article – that Max Cannon does not realize how sweet of a gig he has and to complain, in the manner that he did – again – when EVERYONE is suffering in this economy, I mean come on – doesn’t anybody around here see the lameness in that? The narcissim? The “woe is meâ€ness of it? I’ve seen all the responses on the various blogs that addressed my article, and all the comments and whatnot, and not one of them has said, “You know what, Decker may be a crappy writer who uses lame metaphors and sneers a lot – but he does have a point. It IS kinda lame to complain like that when everybody is losing about 30 percent of their income across the board as well.”
4) “And all this in response to a plea that comic strip fans contact their local weeklies and express how much they enjoy the comics featured therein. Hardly some elitist propaganda juggernaut.â€
I never made any mention of the plea for audience contact. I have no problem with the cartoonists saying, drop a line and let your local paper know how valuable cartoons are to the paper. My problem is with the whinyness of it. And when Cannon said he “slaved†over his comic, that really threw me for a loop. I’ve been writing my column for 15 years and worked hard to make each one as good as they can be (I realize that you find that ridiculous) but I would never say that I slaved over it, when I know how many people out there have truly atrocious, back-breaking jobs and hate every single day they go to work and can only dream about gigs like ours.
5) “Decker’s double-barrel assault on the modestly successful Max Cannon and Tom Tomorrow, his bitchy pronouncement that the fruits of his own talents “can’t even buy me a small bindy of coke and an hour with a bottom-dollar street hooker†are like a planet-sized window into the soul of a failure. “
6) The whole point of that line, aside from trying to be funny, was to show that while I get paid infinitely less for one article than Cannon/Tomorrow does, I still consider myself lucky. And the day CityBeat says it can no longer afford my column, you can damn well bet that my last piece won’t be a crybaby tirade about how I got screwed, and how hard it will be for me to lose that income. Nope. What I will do is write a fabulous farewell fanfare, and thank everyone and everything around me for the fucking best job I ever had in my life which didn’t pay for shit, but I didn’t care.
7) “So let me suggest that you actually demonstrate some solidarity with the brothers of your profession instead of evacuating your bowels on them. ”
What solidarity? It’s not about solidarity. I don’t have any more connection to other freelancers than the gal at my hair salon, who can’t pay her mortgage, and everybody at my wife’s job, who got laid off and are truly screwed, leaving behind a skeleton crew who had to take a pay cut and are scared to death that they will be next to go.
We are all in the same boat, my solidarity is for all of us, in the hopes that we can put our heads down and work through it – not cry about how how much worse it is for me, where it can be read by people who have it so much worse
8) “Because if an alt weekly can’t spare three column inches for Max Cannon or Jen Sorenson, how long do you think its going to take an editor to realize that someone who pens a line like “Maximillian McWhinyFace†isn’t going to be rushing out to buy Pulitzer polish any time soon?”
Really, not even a giggle? Maximilian McWhinyFace didn’t even make you laugh, just a tad, inside, just for a moment, before you could stop yourself? C’mon, that was funny dude, admit it.
I’ll rejoin the most critical of Ed’s remarks.
1) I never said Cannon’s lament was hostile to the industry. I said that it was whiny and complainy, at a time when nearly EVERYBODY is going through what Cannon is going through, and your average Joe has it MUCH harder than your average cartoonist (and yes, columnist too).
Perhaps you were swept up in the chosen-one adulation that befell Joe the Plumber during the election, as if the common grunt had finally generated a king to speak for all who labor with their hands, but the average Joe is anyone who works for a living. I don’t think anyone is less deserving of a paycheck simply for not having spent their productive years as a modern-day gong farmer. I’ve never spread asphalt in the summer sun because I don’t like drinking coffee from a thermos. If you do, more power to ya. But unemployment is the great leveler, and a jobless cartoonist does not have it better than a jobless forklift operator. Financially, he’s got it equally rough.
As for Mr. Cannon’s tone, I think it is modest when you consider that the subject he is addressing is the liquidation of his profession.
2) speaking of jealousy, hell yeah I’m jealous. Not in the “Wringing my hands,†and “bulging neck vein†kind of jealous, but the normal jealousy that goes with observing others enjoy greater success in a similar field as your own, such as syndication in dozens of papers. I guess that was the point of the article – that Max Cannon does not realize how sweet of a gig he has and to complain, in the manner that he did – again – when EVERYONE is suffering in this economy, I mean come on – doesn’t anybody around here see the lameness in that? The narcissim? The “woe is meâ€ness of it?
That you are finding so much solipsism in a rather open-handed request that fans of alt weekly comics express it to their papers’ editors has me wondering if Cannon’s letter contained some sort of DaVinci Code. Yeah, cartooning is nice work if you can get it, but we don’t have unions or lobbyists to speak for us when the work withers on the vine, either.
I would think that with the nation’s brain trust of billionaire fuck-ups jetting to Washington every week for fresh injections of your great-grandchildren’s health insurance money, you’d find riper targets for your ire.
3) I’ve been writing my column for 15 years and worked hard to make each one as good as they can be (I realize that you find that ridiculous) but I would never say that I slaved over it (…)
And women don’t actually slave over hot stoves, either. They just work really hard over them. You are drowning in your own semantics.
4) And the day CityBeat says it can no longer afford my column, you can damn well bet that my last piece won’t be a crybaby tirade about how I got screwed, and how hard it will be for me to lose that income. Nope. What I will do is (…) thank everyone and everything around me for the fucking best job I ever had in my life which didn’t pay for shit, but I didn’t care.
So Max Cannon’s sin is actually trying to maintain a paying career in a field he loves? It’s funny how you conflate fighting for one’s survival with being a sore loser. Maybe you are just eager to jump ship.
5) It’s not about solidarity. I don’t have any more connection to other freelancers than the gal at my hair salon (…) We are all in the same boat, my solidarity is for all of us, in the hopes that we can put our heads down and work through it.
Here is where the penny ought to have dropped for you. “I have no solidarity with the people in my field…I feel the pain of the human race!”
If we are all in the same boat, why are you bailing water in the wrong direction? If you don’t think a plea to your fans could help save your ass if your job was shrunk, don’t crap on those who have a shot. Try supporting them and maybe you’ll find someone tossing you a life preserver one day.
6) Maximilian McWhinyFace didn’t even make you laugh, just a tad, inside, just for a moment, before you could stop yourself? C’mon, that was funny dude, admit it.
See you on the road crew.
“Maximilian McWhinyFace?” No, that is not funny. That is corny. Every utterly untalented average joe in the nation says things exactly like that in high school, until they grow up enough to realize they’re being retards. I should know.
“dangled outside the bars of their laboratory cage to the jeering laughter of vivisectionists.”
THAT is funny.
Well, aren’t we the humor snob. I guess some people still appreciate corny, childish humor and some do not. Not that there’s anything wrong with either sensibility, but I would’ve thought the COMIC and CARTOON crowd would be a little more in touch with their inner, immature cornball. Go figger.
Edwin, give it up. You continue to make an ass of yourself scrambling to underscore your pointless point.
NERD FIGHT!
If Mr Decker is guilty of any crime, it is probably that of bad writing. To be frank, I found the column reeking of arrogance, selfishness and snobbery, which got in the way of his question: what right does any artist have to direct, instruct or request his or her fans to lobby on their behalf?
After all, comics, with very few exceptions, are a maligned medium in mainstream society. Why should the papers waste space, ink and money on childish entertainment when it could be better spent on yet another “serious” story or sold to a paying advertiser?
We should thank the apparently childish Mr Decker for reminding us comic buffs of our despised status. At the same time, we should criticise him for the sloppy presentation obscuring his not entirely “pointless” point.
Yes, Mr Decker, there is a lot of anger directed at you, and unfortunately most of it is due to the needlessly inflammatory style you used. Interesting question, though.
@Cardboard Box
What right does a person have to request fan support? The same as any person hoping to sway an opinion, I’d say. What right does a lobbying firm have to put advertisements on television asking a congressman’s constituents to hang him from his thumbs for supporting a luxury tax on emerald studded monacles?
As for comics being a maligned medium, I will let the number of Oscar nominations split between The Dark Knight, Wanted, the Hulk and Iron Man speak for itself. Comics have been a mainstay of American entertainment for well over a century, and are enjoyed by a majority of the public.
Papers may use their space in any way they see fit, of course, though I doubt you could fit more than half a gluino in the space newspapers usually apportion any single comic strip.
Comic readers are not despised at all, and I think you may just be affecting some unwarranted shame here. Who doesn’t read Peanuts or Garfield? (okay, me, but I used to eat them up!). It is to the papers’ discredit that they do not recognize the value comic strips provide, and an artist is fully justified asking his reader’s to demonstrate the fact.
Good point, and yes, I was affecting some faux shame, which makes a nice change from my genuine lack of repentance.
Perhaps I was reading too much into Mr Decker’s jeering, and all he was doing was trying to make himself feel better about some impending personal doom?
no, I am not concerned about some impending personal doom. I write a satire column. and satirists sometimes jeer. The jeering tone I took in my column was no different than the jeering tone that cartoonists, especially alt-weekly cartoonists take in their pieces when they cover/comment on politics, culture – whatever. That’s what I love about alt-weekly cartoons, the critical thought, the departure from the mainstream, the attitude, the spit and fire – all this stuff that is true of alt-weekly cartoonists is also true of satire columnists and satirists in general. The only reason my piece seemed more full of jeer than usual is because you all – and by that i mean the alt-weekly cartoonists – were the target of the piece. But if you stepped back, and saw it for what it is, and compared it to the general tone of alt-weekly strips, you will see – as far as tone, we are no different.
which begs a question I’ve been meaning to ask since this whole thing began. Why is it ok for you guys to throw spit and fire around and criticize all the people, things and institutions that you criticize, but have not tolerance for those who criticize you? Doesn’t that smack a little of, “You can dish it out but you can’t take it”?
Edwin writes:
“which begs a question I’ve been meaning to ask since this whole thing began. Why is it ok for you guys to throw spit and fire around and criticize all the people, things and institutions that you criticize, but have not tolerance for those who criticize you? Doesn’t that smack a little of, “You can dish it out but you can’t take itâ€?”
It’s the difference between satire and polemics.
ahh, so, you’re an expert at satire, and I’m just some amateur idiot who doesn’t know what he’s doing. Seriously dude, you’ve got to come down off that pedestal some. It’s not becoming.
I like my pedestal. It’s got a donut for my hemmorhoids and everything.
Anyway, what I think all this amounts to is maybe you got in a bit over your head with your Hiroshima-like bombardment of what, upon re-reading, must now seem like a pretty polite appeal from Mr. Cannon for his fans to help keep his career above water. At second blush, you understand that you came off much more low-class than him, and can’t in all honesty justify the level of venom it would take to sustain your argument.
It takes a big man to admit he was wrong. Spirit, the sagest of the G.I. Joes, taught me that lesson years ago. I pass that wisdom onto you now.
You’ve got hemorrhoids too! must be an alt-weekly contributor thing.
Ok, seriously, the, “Hiroshima-like bombardment” of Max Cannon’s appeal was more like an attack on all people, artists and CEO’s and that fucking dipshit on your softball team that thinks he’s so great,he doesn’t have to show up on time cuz everything revolves around him and the team would be in last place without him. Cartoonists were the vehicle, but the piece is about a broader, self-centered mentality that has always aggravated and annoyed me. Sure, it was very harsh and condescending, but that’s my style man. and yes, it takes a big man to admit he’s wrong, but, it takes an equally big man to stand behind what he said/wrote even in the face of an onslaught of criticism (an onslaught, I’d like to point out, even more harsh than the article itself).
I do not believe my article was wrong, maybe exaggerated for humor, but not wrong. Were you wrong about anything?
That said, I can totally agree to disagree. I still love and respect the work of the alt weekly comic writer, especially those mentioned in my article. And I really hate the fact that they all hate me now, and would much rather shake hands and be pals, if that were possible, than continue with the bad mouthing and whatnot. I love a debate, but am tiring of the negativity.
One more thing: I am not over my head. I have been hear before. the lashback on this column was NOTHING compared to some of the other, equally jeering columns, I have written about other topics, my most controversial probably being Just Another Yahu (http://www.edwindecker.com/2007/01/just_another_yahumatisyahu_ins.html), which is about how Orthodox Jews are utter misogynists. You want to see a retaliation, go check this out, and click on some of the links for the various blogs, newspapers and random emailers I got over that column. MY editor was even called by the Anti-Defamation League and threatened with boycotts and lawsuits. Silly Orthodoxies.
“Lashback?”
All you people attacking Ed are missing his point in my opinion. You keep rattling on about how undeserved and tactless it is for him to dare criticize artists for simply making their living as artists are expected to, which is to appeal for public support at times. But, as he’s said in his responses, his problem is not that they attempted to rally support for their cause. It’s the whiny tone that some of them chose to employ. It’s one thing to honestly and directly let your fans know that their support now is more important than ever, and another to sound like a spoiled crybaby in doing so. And I think Max’s “slaved” quote proves his point quite well.
Of course Ed took what was an insightful point a bit over-the-top and used it as a launching point for what was at times a pretty hostile tirade against the cartoonists involved. But that’s what is fun about his column. Any sensible reader realizes that blowing things out-of-proportion and satirically tearing his subjects apart is what he does best. You may not care for it, but recognize it for what it is and don’t take it so personally. Surely it should be clear that he didn’t mean it to be so. Also, he’s attracting attention to your cause, so stop whining already!
If satire is what he does best, I think I’ll avoid his cooking. As to the subject of “whininess”, I have yet to see anyone actually quote Max Cannon in an effort to illustrate this point. The best that has been proffered is his use of the word “slaved”, which I am already on record as pointing out was Ed making a mountain out of a molehill.
I am a little thrown by the tendency of Ed’s defenders (read: you and you alone, fanboy) to throw out the word “whiney” at the drop of a hat. To alert is not to whine. To complain is not to whine. To bitch in a needy way is to whine, and I do not think that you can demonstrate that either Max Cannon’s petition or the critique that has followed on the heels of Ed’s screed is genuinely whiney.
It’s not just the word slaved. It is the tone throughout the piece. Indeed the very first sentence – the thesis – is rife with whine that goes far beyond the word slaved.
“… where a handful of ragtag scribblers like myself have slaved, for very little money if you ever wondered, to bring you a laugh or two…”
Ragtag? Very little money? Slaved? To bring you a laugh or two? Gimme a break. Perhaps if it were slaved alone, i would’ve been making a mountain out of a molehill, but in context, that sentence is a giant weepy whinefest, as is the rest of the piece.
2)
1) I don’t know what sinister connotations “rag tag” has for you, but that sounds like a little harmless self-effacement to me.
2) Do you somehow think Charles Schulz is the industry standard for alt weekly cartoonists? Because I haven’t seen a Bug-Eyed Earl balloon in the Macy’s parade yet. I know this seems incredible, but it is possible to be a professional cartoonist and still have a modest income.
3) And still you return to “slaved”. Do you have cotton under your fingernails or something, that you don’t want anyone else to use that word?
I think I get it now. Decrypting Cannon’s intent word by word, you have arrived at this secret message visible only through a pair of Hoffman lenses:
“… where a reptilian cartel of highly disciplined propagandists, cloned from the neurons of Josef Goebells himself, have groomed humanity for half a millennia to prepare you for a lifetime of slavery in our Queen’s fetid honeycomb.”
You seem to have an exaggerated and, I think, self-loathing opinion of freelancers as spoiled and carefree, as if we don’t hustle every day to make ends meet like the rest of the working world. Maybe you write for a hobby, but some people have made a career of what they love. The fact that it is a career does not mean, however, that it is either exalted or protected. Does Cannon resort to a note of pleading? Perhaps. But that is what it means to have no protector between you and fickle fate. You have to appeal to the mob, and throw yourself at their mercy a little.
This conversation is lurching into flame war territory, so I will consider my piece spoken and leave the last word to you.
So your “piece” has spoken eh? That’s funny because my piece talks also.
Thanks for the last word, however I concur, we have beat this thing dead now, my last word probably came about 50 words ago. I’ve nothing new to add, except to say I had a good time arguing about this, and that I clearly defeated all comers. Hopefully your vagina isn’t smarting too much from all this. LOL. Peace.
Getting back to the original point, I always have found it tragic that alt weeklies generally give as little space as possible to comics and have by and large missed the chance to be the medium for such a vibrant art form. So I side with Jason, though Ed is quite the woofy bear.
Still I have to ask why Jason is rushing to the defense of a vastly inferior cartoonist. Maybe it’s because I’ve got an untrained eye, but Red Meat looks like it takes about 5 minutes per strip to produce while every episode of “Deep Fried” looks like it should be on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Yet Red Meat gets far more circulation than Deep Fried.
Your check is in the mail, Richard.
“tragic”? Really? See, this is exactly what I’ve been talking about. Not to leap at you Richard, you seem nice enough to me (I think I like being called a woofy bear though i’m not sure what it means) but I reserve the word tragedy for, you know, tragedies.
Cartoons, like everything else in the media, get exactly the amount of space they deserve – which is to say, the audience dictates what they want to read and how much of it. To complain that you’re not getting enough space means that you are not appreciating the space that you were afforded in the first place.
Ed- seeing as how you brought my vagina into the discussion with your penultimate post, I am going to have to cut you off at this point. Don’t let the door hitcha!
This topic has been dragged on way too long, but like everyone I want the last friggin’ word:
“Tragic” was a bit of hyperbole, something which all posters here have used, but yeah, I’m real disappointed that most alternative papers give the cold shoulder to cartoons, which are no less legit an art form than music, painting or literature.
I fondly remember a quote from Calvin and Hobbes: “Your grandfather takes cartoons awfully seriously.” “Yeah, we’re looking to put him in a rest home.” C&H author Bill Watterson reversed the newspaper trend of shrinking comic strips and demanded papers give him more space. Some dropped him, most didn’t dare. He’s my hero for that alone.
From what I can see on Ed’s website he’s an artist/poet himself, and his view is apparently that artists can’t have this the-world-owes-me attitude, which is respectable. But as an alternative newspaper editor myself (we devote a full page to comics) I don’t let other newspapers off the hook. It’s not the audience that dictates what goes into most papers. It’s business decisions, very short-sighted ones. Alt papers were created as a medium more attuned to the arts and they’re blowing it. Might be part of the reason they’re dropping like flies.
Ok, Richard, the last word is all yours. Lucky for me, I agree with everything you wrote (especially the part about comics being a legitimate art form) so I won’t have to fight the urge to contradict you.
JY, I apologize if my vaginalogue upset you. Again, I was just trying to be silly and funny. I guess we are just on different planets when it comes to sense of humor.