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Sprezzatura Could Not be Reached For Comment

[ 50 ] April 17, 2011 | Scott Lemieux

Reader “Mary Rosh” writes in to assure us that Scott Adams is a true, non-sexist genius whose comic remains almost as relevant as Mallard Fillmore.

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Comments (50)

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  1. efgoldman says:
    April 17, 2011 at 1:37 pm

    You know, I can love Wagner’s music (and I do) even though he was one of the worst anti-semitic rat bastards of his time.

    But “his time” ended well more than a century ago.

    I love Dilbert. I’ve worked in some of those places, for and with some of those same kinds of people.

    But Adams’ time is now, in the 21st century, in my lifetime.

    I know, after the misogynist rant, my (30 yo) daughter took the calendar off her desk. I’m really, really conflicted…

    Reply
  2. Michael Bérubé says:
    April 17, 2011 at 1:38 pm

    A certified genius, at that.

    In other news, Ann Althouse tells the New York Times,

    “I don’t have people coming up to me at the law school saying, ‘Oh, that was an interesting post.’ It seems silly but it’s almost like they think they’re reading a secret diary of mine and they’re not supposed to talk about it.” But, she says, “I would like it if they did.”

    Does anyone have any idea why people at the University of Wisconsin-Madison law school don’t talk to Professor Althouse about her interesting blog posts?

    Reply
    • hv says:
      April 17, 2011 at 1:54 pm

      “I would like it if they did.”

      I fear her signalling will taint future results.

      Reply
      • R. Johnston says:
        April 17, 2011 at 2:07 pm

        Do you ever have those dyslexic moments where you read “I fear singeing her taint” and do a double take?

        Reply
    • Scott Lemieux says:
      April 17, 2011 at 3:25 pm

      I think it’s more on the order of “after one of my particularly interesting blog posts, I see my colleagues slowly walking away with odd smiles.”

      Reply
    • kth says:
      April 17, 2011 at 6:02 pm

      I can imagine a lot of people wanting to ask her, “that’s some messed-up sh** you wrote, what is wrong with you?” But most blog followers are probably familiar with that time she went mental on Bloggingheads.tv (note: “that time” = every time she’s on), and hadn’t packed a lunch sufficient for such an encounter.

      Reply
  3. larryb33 says:
    April 17, 2011 at 1:54 pm

    ummm.. can I just say this is kind of weird? I fell asleep last night thinking “what is the name of that toothless comic with the duck?”. I remembered the name and then I started thinking “what is that other stupid one by Scott Adams?”
    I have no idea how these thoughts got there– just one of those strange half asleep, random ruminations. That is what I thought.

    If you have the power to channel/direct our thoughts why weren’t you in the Education supplement today?

    Reply
  4. malraux says:
    April 17, 2011 at 2:55 pm

    Wait, why does scott adams own/manage a restaurant?

    Reply
    • Halloween Jack says:
      April 18, 2011 at 11:14 am

      There was a long NYT article on it, but I can’t link to it because I’ve reached my limit for the month. It’s your basic comedy of errors where Adams stepped in because one of the restaurants was suffering due to competition by chain restaurants, and he ended up making things worse. (One of his brilliant ideas was to have a big-screen TV show nothing but Dilbert cartoons on a loop.)

      Reply
  5. Rarely Posts says:
    April 17, 2011 at 2:58 pm

    I disagree with this sentiment: “remains almost as relevant as Mallard Fillmore.”

    Dilbert is not a great comic, but it is humorous on occasion. The creator’s vision (all of humanity and human institutions as deeply flawed) provides humorous material and close enough to accurate to be interesting. Doesn’t fix that he’s a misogynist, but he is sufficiently misanthropic that his negative portrayals of women are generally overwhelmed by his negative portrayals of men. He does occasionally use sexist jokes though, and that really does render Dilbert a substantially worse comic than it otherwise would be.

    In contrast, Mallard Fillmore is just a horrible comic, full stop. It’s never humorous, and it’s ideological vision is not only completely inaccurate but interferes with the “jokes”. It’s a political rant that happens to conform to several comic conventions, but it unfortunately does not manage to be either humorous or interesting.

    On that note, joshreads’ policies used to include a rule along the lines of: “Don’t talk about Mallard Filmore. Just don’t.” He has since tempered it: “And since some of these strips (Mallard Fillmore in particular) are really just political cartoons crammed into the comics section, just bringing them up is more likely than not to get you banned even if no firestorm results.” http://joshreads.com/?page_id=514

    Reply
    • KadeKo says:
      April 17, 2011 at 3:19 pm

      So agreed about Mallard Fillmore. If it’s become one iota better since it started, I haven’t noticed.

      Why does it exist? I’ve read that it’s the best of its type out there. Is it just another casse of right-wing “balance welfare”?

      Reply
      • GeoX says:
        April 17, 2011 at 3:40 pm

        Mallard Fillmore was never, ever remotely good, but it’s actually gotten much WORSE over time, if that’s possible. Ustabee that there were actual characters and semblances of plotlines. Now, it’s just disconnected, drunken ranting all day every day.

        Reply
      • Rarely Posts says:
        April 17, 2011 at 3:40 pm

        It’s got to be right-wing balance welfare. A right-winger once told me that Mallard Fillmore was the right-wing version of Doonesbury, and he honestly didn’t understand that this comparison is similar to comparing the Swan to the Wire. He said he PREFERRED Mallard Fillmore to Doonesbury. I honestly cannot fathom what goes on in right-winger heads.

        Reply
        • R. Johnston says:
          April 17, 2011 at 3:50 pm

          What goes on in right-winger heads is insane conspiracy theorizing in support of a maniacally obsessive victimization complex and to counter the omnipresent conservative fear that someone, somewhere, might be happy.

          Reply
        • Jay C says:
          April 17, 2011 at 11:56 pm

          Comic strips tend to be oddly long-lived a lot of times: Josh at Comics Curmudgeon ran a link a couple of years back to a comics page from 1958, fifty years previous, and there were six or seven strips that were still being run in 2008 – some stuff – Mallard Fillmore is unfortunately among it – is fated to just hang around until either 1) the artist retires; 2) the artist dies; 3) the artist finally pisses off one bigwig too many. (and option 2 doesn’t even stop them all the time, either!)

          Reply
        • Jeff R. says:
          April 18, 2011 at 7:09 am

          Yes, I’m quite certain the syndicate marketed Mallard as balance to Doonesbury. Trudeau is certainly liberal, but he’s quite willing to take shots at Democratic politicians. He was quite brutal to Carter, Tip O’Neil and Jerry Brown.

          And to follow up to Jay C, the longevity champion must be “Gasoline Alley,’ which has run since 1918. It’s also one of the few to more or less age the characters in real time. That’s makes Walt to be about 110 now.

          Reply
          • Rarely Posts says:
            April 18, 2011 at 8:04 am

            Don’t forget, he also depicted Clinton as a waffle, and he slammed Nader supporters. Trudeau has an accurate worldview, and he builds humor out of it. Sadly, this approach provides numerous opportunities to brutally attack Democrats and liberals as well.

            Reply
        • Anonymous says:
          April 19, 2011 at 4:38 pm

          Some people like Pop Tarts better than real pie.

          Reply
      • Halloween Jack says:
        April 18, 2011 at 11:22 am

        “Balance welfare” is an excellent term for it. I’m convinced that the people who insist on Mallard Fillmore being in their local paper don’t even like comics, but want it there on general principles. They feel safe in knowing that it’s got a feeble one-liner repeating whatever the talking point du jour is on Fox that day.

        Reply
    • Scott Lemieux says:
      April 17, 2011 at 3:26 pm

      No, you’re right; Dilbert was once actually quite funny and even past its sell-by date is better than Mallard Fillmore…

      Reply
    • c u n d gulag says:
      April 17, 2011 at 3:27 pm

      If Ayn Rand was a cartoonist, she would have drawn Mallard Fillmore.

      On the comic pages, that strip would have to be kept seperated from “Little Orphan Annie,” or the children might be shocked by the duck’s randy desire for poor little girls.

      Reply
    • Anonymous says:
      April 17, 2011 at 5:55 pm

      yes, compared to Mallard Fillmore, Dilbert is American Splendor.

      Reply
  6. Bill Murray says:
    April 17, 2011 at 3:13 pm

    Isn’t much of Dilbert Adams taking readers submissions about what happens at their work and turning them into his cartoon?

    Reply
    • Rob says:
      April 17, 2011 at 4:36 pm

      My guess is he’s on the Jim Davis plan right about now. He’s more worried about expanding the brand than anything else/

      Reply
  7. booferama says:
    April 17, 2011 at 5:08 pm

    Why is it our greatest cultural commentators, Adams and Siegel, who get caught up in this?

    /injured myself with snark

    Reply
  8. Linda says:
    April 17, 2011 at 6:19 pm

    How ironic. Mysogynists I know would say that any guy who needs to prop up his ego/creds with a sock puppet, AND deletes controversial postings because he can’t take the heat AND defends taking down those postings because he claims his readers are stupid, as opposed to his own cowardice is a …pussy. And I’m sure that Adams would agree, if it involved anybody else but him.

    Reply
  9. Matt T. says:
    April 17, 2011 at 6:55 pm

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Adams make some waves a few years ago concerning his “skepticism” over global climate change and/or evolution? I seem to remember reading it on P.Z. Meyers’ blog, so may’ve just been evolution he thought was booshwah.

    And if I understand correctly, Dilbert is done much like Garfield (and many other strips), wherein Adams has little to do with the art and, I think, many of the gags. I apologize for my lack of certainty on these topics, but I just got off work and I honestly can’t be bothered to give a shit about Scott Adams or his cartoon.

    Reply
    • BlackMage says:
      April 17, 2011 at 7:56 pm

      As I recall: Adams predicted that evolution would be disproven in The Dilbert Future because ‘things get disproven all the time’, and he picked evolution just for kicks.

      Then he excitedly described The Secret for 50 pages.

      Past is prologue.

      Reply
      • Linda says:
        April 17, 2011 at 8:08 pm

        Yeah, if you get successful and well-known at something, you are in danger of thinking of yourself as a profound thinker in all things, because in our society success=all-around genius. Like, for instance, Donald Trump.

        Reply
        • N W Barcus says:
          April 18, 2011 at 12:45 pm

          Or PhDs in general. I’ve read some seriously whacked-out things from people who think their degree entitles them to authoritatively opine on the existence of psychic powers, or retrospectively translate religious books into scientific textbooks, while celebrating their own ignorance on the subjects.

          Reply
  10. JP Stormcrow says:
    April 17, 2011 at 8:31 pm

    Here’s some genius-style thoughts on taxes he had last December.

    My own view, as a member of the Suckers group, is that if economists determine that the best way to make the country solvent is to increase my taxes, I’m willing to look at those numbers. I’m a practical guy. But I do resent being gang raped by the Rich and the Majority while they high-five each other and call it fairness. And I’d feel a little better about it if the Majority would do a better job managing things going forward.

    So says the “sucker” living in a house with 8,325 square feet of living space and an 8,476-square-foot attached indoor tennis court. Your taxes are exactly like gang rape.

    Reply
  11. dangermouse says:
    April 18, 2011 at 2:53 am

    My favorite bit of all this was Adams repeatedly bringing up his IQ.

    Reply
    • PlannedChaos says:
      April 18, 2011 at 7:43 am

      I guess that dimwits like you can’t understand what it’s like to have a genius level IQ like Scott Adams. With a genius level IQ like that, the most obvious way to defuse criticism is to refer repeatedly to your genius level IQ, which, let’s face it, shows that he is better than you.

      Reply
    • Graham Shevlin says:
      April 20, 2011 at 12:49 pm

      What was that old statement about empty vessels making the most noise?

      Reply
  12. John F says:
    April 18, 2011 at 9:45 am

    Mallard Fillmore was never, ever remotely good

    I once saw an almost humorous Mallard Fillmore strip- the last panel had the duck facing the reader and saying, “oops I forgot to tell a joke… again”

    Of course it was another cartoonist’s parody of Mallard Fillmore.

    Reply

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