The Globe cut Mallard Fillmore

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Boston Globe

Submitted by adamg on Mon, 10/27/2008 - 9:14pm.

Its been a long day I

Its been a long day I thought I saw they dropped Millard Fillmore, I was going to say those anti whig bastards!

ShadyMilkMan | Mon, 10/27/2008 - 9:34pm

Thank You!

Thank goodness. That comic was awful.

DVDWow | Mon, 10/27/2008 - 10:21pm

I'm curious, can you say why you didn't like it?

Is it because you didn't understand it? Or simply you didn't like the humor because it dumped on liberals?

merlinmurph | Tue, 10/28/2008 - 6:58am

Forgetting how unfunny the strip was, for all the imagining of it being a counterbalance to "liberal" strips, the liberal strips in question are still traditional comic strips. They had characters and stories. Mallard was just an editorial cartoon that was usually narrated by a duck. Actually, that's unfair to editorial cartoons. Its really just a brief editorial that happens to be illustrated and told from the perspective of a duck.

Which doesn't belong on the comics page. Nor does it belong on the editorial page as the Globe already runs far better editorials AND editorial cartoons from conservative voices who aren't ducks.

BStu | Tue, 10/28/2008 - 8:26am

I believe he is

I believe he(Mallard) is a penguin. And how can you say it's not not funny? Those drawings of Obama and others were a hoot.

panda | Wed, 10/29/2008 - 7:28pm

Opus is the penguin

Mallard is the duck.

And Paul, of course, is the walrus.

adamg | Wed, 10/29/2008 - 7:39pm

Comedy has to be funny

Politics is secondary embellishment. It wasn't that I didn't like the humor, it was that it nearly totally lacked humor.

Mallard Filmore was not funny. It wasn't funny in the same way that John Kerry's diaper joke wasn't funny, and Dukakis' "he has a bomb" joke wasn't funny. The same way that Dennis Leary isn't funny when he smears the parents of kids with autism. Not funny.

Remember the Half Hour News Hour? Why didn't it last very long when John Stewart and Stephen Colbert keep going and going? Colbert is funny. Stewart is funny. That's why the chancellor of Liberty University and other right-wing types will go on their programs. The Half-Hour News Hour wasn't funny. Ditto for "An American Carol".

A picture of Saint Obama done up like a greek orthodox icon complete with halo glow around his head? Funny. When my neo-wingnut paranoid brother in law sent a photo of a black bear at a picnic table and a long winded and tortuous explanation about how how the bear must be an Obama supporter because he's (black and) represents Yogi bear who was always waiting around for a handout (= pick-a-nic basket) and not working for his food ever? Not funny. Same politics, different result.

SwirlyGrrl | Tue, 10/28/2008 - 8:56am

I noticed they had a new stupid comic

Or actually, three new stupid comics: CUL-DE-SAC, THE PAJAMA DIARIES, and FRAZZ.

Golly, awkward kids in school? Family humor with cupcakes? Never seen that before!

But I didn't notice which old stupid comic was gone. Guess that shows how much I read Dullard Whinemore.

They've also made the comics really small now, which sucks. I've got pretty good eyes (for my age, wheeze) and they're hard to read sometimes. Dinky little mini-comics. Them younguns over to the Glob got a lotta gol-durned nerve, I tells you!

Gareth | Tue, 10/28/2008 - 4:51am

I didn't notice it was gone, either, until ...

Last night, when the kidlet (a BIG comics fan) asked me if I noticed what was different besides the color.

Speaking of the color, I think that might be part of the legibility issue. Some of them just seem too cluttered now with all that color (except for Non-Sequitur, which is still black and white except for, oddly, the speech balloons, which just looks weird).

adamg | Tue, 10/28/2008 - 6:38am

I noticed that

I figure that is because it is now so small it would look worse with color. The paper probably insisted he do it with color, so he checked that box while preserving legibility.

Gareth | Tue, 10/28/2008 - 6:50am

Don't be too hasty

The Pajama Diaries is awful, but Frazz is all right, and give Cul-de-Sac a chance: it's actually rather brilliant. It's become one of my favorite strips over the last year or so, but it's one of those strips where you have to get used to its kind of odd rhythm.

I've always just felt kind of sorry for the guy who writes Mallard Fillmore: the strip is usually nothing more than bile and impotent rage. It can't be fun to live like that.

Stewart | Tue, 10/28/2008 - 10:06am

Just not funny

I disliked it because it wasn't funny or insightful. I can laugh at good political humor no matter who it pokes at, but Fillmore just seemed desperate and tired. It simply regurgitated the party operative line.

--Kelly

Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can borrow mine. - http://despair.com/sanity.html

KellyJMF | Tue, 10/28/2008 - 8:22am

Comic poll

I can't vote because none of the choices reflects my true opinion. Can you add a "Who cares?" choice to the poll?

the_passenger | Tue, 10/28/2008 - 8:24am

Now, if only the Globe would dump....

Pooch Cafe.

I kept hoping this would get better eventually. but it hasn't.

(Mallard Fillmore was neither well-drawn nor funny).

Does anyone else hate the current version of Opus (in the Sunday comics)?

Michael Kerpan | Tue, 10/28/2008 - 10:51am

Opus is just sad

Instead of dragging out the whole death thing, Breathed should have made like Gary Larson and just quit. So, yeah, enough already.

adamg | Tue, 10/28/2008 - 10:55am

He's done, soon.

Heard an interview with him & he has drawn his last Opus strip.

jchristian | Tue, 10/28/2008 - 11:06am

Opus is on his way out

There's only one or two weeks left in the strip, I believe. Berke Breathed has gotten really depresso and maudlin and hinting at Endings and Finality and Fear of One's Own Mortality and all that.

Part of me thinks he's really gonna kill the penguin off once and for all.

Spatch | Tue, 10/28/2008 - 11:07am

Hey, "Fraz" Looks A Lot Like "Calvin"

Wait a minute: the character "Fraz" greatly resembles "Calvin" from the defunct "Calvin and Hobbes"; just a little bit taller. Does Bill Watterson know about this?

laurence_glavin | Tue, 10/28/2008 - 4:33pm

Yep

You're roughly the 358,593rd person to notice this.

Stewart | Tue, 10/28/2008 - 5:37pm

good riddance...

... the problem with Mallard, as others have pointed out, is it wasn't funny. It was mean-spirited and dealt with crude, poorly drawn caricatures. The same tired cliches, such as bashing public education, making all feminists look ugly, etc. Yes, my politics are on the left side of the spectrum but a good example of a funny right-leaning strip is Prickly City. He skewers both sides and seems to have a bit more of a libertarian streak. And it has more warmth--Carmen and Winslow are the best of friends even with their political differences.

PFL1982 | Sun, 11/02/2008 - 3:02pm