iPub .4 and my thoughts on segar / mufatti


Go here to see what I said about the Great Debate. If you're interested, of course...

7 comments:

Jed Alexander said...

Fair enough, Mark (your weigh in on the "debate") but why should laugh-out-loud funny be the measure of a good strip? I never found Polly and Her Pals particularly uproarious, but it ranks high as one of my favorites. Its just gorgeously designed and wonky. I like Krazy Kat, but I never actually laughed out loud at a Krazy Kat strip, as far as I know. The thing about Segar was he came up with great characters and great stories. Popeye has more personality in his little finger than A whole fisful of Audreys. I think it's easy to become anured to how compelling and unique a character he is since he's been diluted by so much merchandizing and bad cartoons and junk over the years.

And for the record EeteeD:

You don't seem like such a bad guy. You sound like a really bright, obviously knowledgable sort of fella, who I think backed himself into a corner on this one. I hereby apologize for calling you high. I considered it more light-hearted ribbing than an actual dispersion on your character.

Mark Martin said...

ARGH!

Now don't you start again! I didn't say laugh-out-loud was the measure of a good comic. That is just ONE THING I said about Segar's Popeye.

Good lord. No wonder your wife has to block your chat room passwords.

Jed Alexander said...

Well, it could be worse. I could be in on that heated toaster debate right now on the TCJ board. I promise the buck stops here!

Anonymous said...

Man! Those toasters are beautiful.
And the ads are, too.

Swoon!

Anonymous said...

It's not a debate about toasters, jed. It's a debate about the "verisimilitude" of Mufatti's little comic strip.

Jed Alexander said...

"versimilitude"? Are you high? Are THEY high? It's cartoons! And people say I should lighten up...

Anonymous said...

Yes, "verisimilitude." A Mufatti critic on the tcj.com messboard claimed that the Mufatti cartoon would be more true to life if Audrey had been shown making toast at the counter rather than at the table; a Mufatti defender proved the Mufatti critic was wrong, that the cartoon is perfectly fine as is; then the Mufatti critic claimed that his criticism of the lack of "verisimilitude" (his word) in the Mufatti cartoon was his least essential point. Which was obvious from the start, right? Because one always breaks out ten-dollar words like "verisimilitude" when one is just shooting the breeze, or shooting oneself in the foot, whatever...

But Mufatti's in good company, because the same critic who attacked Mufatti has also posted, ahem, constructive criticism of the work of Charles M. Schulz, Alex Toth, and Rembrandt.