If you’ve never seen Doonesbury - a cartoon ‘funny’ that appears in The Guardian - then the above strip will make no sense. But you really aren’t missing much, on both sides of the experience.
Oliver May 4th, 2005 4:05 pm
The Doonesbury in the Guardian is totally crap. I feel hatred for it.
daman May 4th, 2005 6:09 pm
Doonesbury’s so lame. Its like one of those ubiquitous american sitcoms that somehow make it over to this country (clinging on to the underside of a boat I imagine) to haunt day time TV- some vague hint at contemporary issues, banal characters, crappy or non-existant plot lines, dis-affected youth..etc. but perhaps doonesbury’s actually an incredibly witty satire on such programs or on the state of America in general (it wishes!)
I like this spoof of it tho.
This Space for Rent May 4th, 2005 11:22 pm
Hmmm, torn between two positions. So I went and found G2s scattered around my flat and found one strip set in Iraq, and one about Tom Daschle. So I think that evidence supports both sides.
One side of me suspects Doonesbury is one of those things that people don’t really understand, enjoy or like but pretend to for intellectual or social credibility. This list includes the National Theatre’s Programming, half of Woody Allen’s output, David Lynch films, a lot of Bob Dylan records, ‘Transformer’ by lou reed, Brett Easton Eliis novels and other things. It’s fun to make you own list.
The other side of me suspects that if people don’t get it they should try harder. James Joyce wrote Ulysses with the intention that his readers would have to read a lot of other books, histories etc, so that they understood it. We’ve moved away from that idea and think everything should be accessible, open and inclusive. What about a challenge, eh?
So not sure really, is the fault with it or us? Hmm.
This Space for Rent May 4th, 2005 11:23 pm
But I forgot to mention, good spoof.
Oliver May 4th, 2005 11:55 pm
No way is Doonesbury comparable to Ulysees. I know what you mean (partic in comparison to Brett Easton Ellis — you have to know the characters then you get extra understanding from it) , but I think that for anyone to grapple and endure with the meaning, the item itself has to be good enough each time to stick with. Doonesbury’s just crap. Try swamp thing.
Oliver May 5th, 2005 12:05 am
I didn’t really mean that to come out like that. What I simly meant was, Doonesbury’s the only thing you’ve listed that hasn’t ever made me want to try harder. But there’s no accounting for taste.
Gary Ablett May 5th, 2005 1:21 am
I think B.Easton-Ellis’ writing - and therefore the reading of his books (only read three books… but I think that’s enough to comment) - is not in any way about social or intellectual credibility… I think his books are mock visceral and largely satirical in their content, presented in an almost comic strip style. I enjoyed and liked American Psycho and I think that any book that can be written that’s fallout includes the FBI opening a file on the author because they are concerned that he may actually be a psychopath is, if nothing else, quite bloody interesting… and funny. I’m not saying this because I wish to be socialy accepted… I gave up on that long ago!
I’m tempted to tear apart all of the cited “cool because I want to get it” list compiled by This Space… but I shan’t on this occassion other than to say… the reason for want-tearing is because these things are largely “got” because there actually is a justified reason for why they are “got”… yes we may accept (and mistakenly laud)the odd discrepency in genius, but its only because the genius exists there to begin with… it’s just as silly and dangerous to lay into something because it is widely critically accaimed and you, personally, don’t get it or think that it’s wank. You could be wrong… or you could just have an opinion… opinions are healthy.
Lastly… a “lot” of Bob Dylan’s records? lot lot lot lot lot lot lot lot… i wil disagree until the end of eternity, the reason for which (as I have previously stated) is not in any way regarding social/intellectual acceptance… i would quite happily exist within the region of complete non-acceptance as long as I have Blood On The Tracks, Highway 61, Bringing It All Back Home, Another Side Of, The Freewhelin’, Time Out Of Mind, Blone On Blonde and even friggin’ New Morning on my shelf and on my player than kowtow to whatever it is that intellectuals and society are wanting me at any given moment to dig.
Phew! That there is just about an essay… sorry… what were we originally talking about now?
Oh yes… the comic… you know, I’ve been reading the Guardian (as my choice, socially and intellectually accepted newspaper) for two and a half years now (as long as I’ve been in the country) and I’ve never, ever, not once, seen this comic strip… this disturbs both me and the Amazon rain forest.
The only Guardian comic strip that comes to my mind is that poncey one about writers that’s in the Saturday literary Review section. I would love for someone to satirise that…
Oliver May 5th, 2005 1:58 am
I thought the point he/she was making about Easton Ellis and Lynch particularly might have been that the more of it you know, the more you pick up on the cross-references, and so that filtered across to doonesbury because maybe if we’d all read it relentlessly then we’d understand how all the strips interlinked more. I could be wrong. And Doonesbury’s still a pile of wank.
Gary Ablett May 6th, 2005 12:02 am
No, Oliver… the following quoted paragraph illustrates my point and not yours…
“One side of me suspects Doonesbury is one of those things that people don’t really understand, enjoy or like but pretend to for intellectual or social credibility.”
…that, to me, is the key point but the rest follows it up…
“This list includes the National Theatre’s Programming, half of Woody Allen’s output, David Lynch films, a lot of Bob Dylan records, ‘Transformer’ by lou reed, Brett Easton Eliis novels and other things.”
There is, apparently a third paragraph (of This Space’s comment) that begins with “the other side of me thinks” or some such nonsense… I don’t know… I didn’t read it… I was too easily offended by crimes against art in paragraph two. I’m like that… easily accessed… god, that sounds sordid!
So yeah… and so on… just read the last bit of that comment though… is the fault with it or us? I have answer for that, I’ll tell you… by god do I have an answer for that!
Oliver May 6th, 2005 11:08 am
I wasn’t saying you were *wrong* ABLETT, I was just trying to ventriloquise a more interesting point about interlinking-ness out of the point I didn’t like about “the things people want to like for credibility etc blah”. Are there really that many people wanting to like those things for intellectual kudos? I kinda think you either like em or you don’t. meh. It’s not a bone. Ok if I did say you were wrong I didn’t MEAN it. foight! grrr.
these are my sentiments:
1. I don’t even undertand what an intellectual is, in my mind it IS someone who ponces about referencing Ulysees.
2. You wanna read Borges. (laughing now).
3. the answer is c, Albert the Great - all the rest are Welsh.
4. I’ve said it once and i’ll say it again: Walt Disney was full body criogenized.
You’d understand what I meant if you’d read The Hunting of the Snark. I wonder if you got to vote, and I wonder, if all parties except the BNP said they’d ban bob, would you vote for em??
Oliver May 6th, 2005 11:09 am
See it?
Ban The BOB
WWJD?
daman May 6th, 2005 2:55 pm
the thing with Doonesbury is, I’m not sure its a question of getting it or not. I’m not sure there’s much to get. I think if you’d been reading it from the beginning it would make sense, because I think its just a fairly boring (slightly satirical) narrative that’s been chopped up. Obviously it has the potential to confuse the occassional reader and reward the loyal (although if you consider it a reward you should probably get out more). It’d be pretty much the same as if you cut up any comic book into four frame sections and showed people one a week. I don’t actually think its clever or particularly surreal, its just that we only see snippets of the whole ’story’, and the snippets on their own can’t really make much sense, without reference to the previous ones.
I’m not sure its exactly the same with things on rent’s list. Although in some ways it is because basically if you get the references/symbols…etc its a lot easier to understand. The difference is the construction of doonesbury isn’t half as clever in a creative way. The construction of a Lynch film for example is great because it can have quite a profound effect, even if you don’t ‘get it’, and once you do start to get even an idea of what its all about (use of symbols and how the narrative works..etc) then even though it might be disturbing its pretty darn satisfying too.
I think all the examples are just like ‘jig-saw puzzles’ really. You have to make the effort to put the pieces together. I think Doonesbury is a pretty easy puzzle with big pieces, but you just have to put the time in, if you can be bothered. The pieces would probably all be numbered on the back too! Ultimately I reckon the picture would be pretty boring tho (maybe one of those pics of a country cottage or something. not very satisfying). Something like a Lynch film, is obviously a more complex puzzle, different sized pieces and more of them perhaps, but I think the overall picture would be a lot more intense and rewarding. But surely all art is a puzzle of sorts anyway. In some books/paintings/songs/films all the peices are all numbered and already fitted together, but even though its easy to work out it might not be as satisfying because the overall image may not be as nice as something you have to take time to piece together. I don’t think any puzzle has particular merit just becasue it take longer to fit the pieces together. The picture could be rubbish. Its the same with really ‘intellectual’ style books…etc - sometimes they’re too clever for their own good, and either you can’t fit the puzzle together or the picture is crap and doesn’t match the one on the box anyway.
Hushdie May 7th, 2005 1:33 am
Take it slow.
Take it sloooowwww
(is that sexy?)
I do try
Gary Ablett May 7th, 2005 11:33 am
I’m not aloud to vote but I voted for the BNP anyway… so there’s some kind of answer to your riddle Oliver!
Oliver May 7th, 2005 12:36 pm
That’s a shame you can’t vote. Did I ever show you my other riddle? it’s nice
y y u r
y y u b
i c u r
y y 4 me
Oliver May 7th, 2005 12:37 pm
but not true.
This Space for Rent May 7th, 2005 2:43 pm
It clears things up a bit if my original comment has a caveat that ’some’ things ’some’ people say they like without actually doing so. Otherwise what I said can be seen as deeply patronising and offensive in a many ways, so sorry ’bout that.
However, we understand ‘emperor’s new clothes syndrome’ as existing, there are quite lauded things that are quite possibly rubbish, but sometimes people can be nervous to express their opinions, as you’ve ended up with art fascism. Is everything viewed as good really shit but people are too nervous to say so? No, of course not. But some stuff is. For example, Lord of the Rings winning the Best Picture Oscar. Please persuade me how it won for artistic merit and not for filling Scrooge McDuck’s vault.
It’s weird isn’t it that we’re not really willing to tell someone their opinion is wrong? I mean lots of opinions are false, but we don’t say so, because everyone has a right to an opinion. Weird.
I read Americna Psycho, and know what you mean about the cartoon-like visciousness, and it being a description of those whith shallow, empty lives described in rich prose with amusing vigenttes as they view them as important. That’s sort of interesting and funny, but then there’s another three hundred pages of the same. But then I might not be understanding it.
Da Man, no, certainly, just because you have to work harder doesn’t make something better, but I think a lot of people object to having to work at a something at all.
scrutiny May 9th, 2005 2:54 am
All I’m really interested in is seeing an “Alien versus Predator” style “Doonesbury versus Garfield” graphic fusion. Can anyone provide such a thing?
Maybe it could also include other pithy characters from newspaper cartoon supplements. Like that one about a basset dog who always does something ‘hilarious’ like getting mud on the sofa. Or those two naked eight year-olds with droopy eyes and no genitalia.
But not Calvin and Hobbes. Never Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin and Hobbes are fantastic.
This Space for Rent May 9th, 2005 8:38 pm
I don’t like the naked eight year olds who are married and define love. It’s unsettling and I don’t know where to look.
The sociable truth May 10th, 2005 5:41 pm
Have you seen the adverts that they do for tube ettiquete?
May 3rd, 2005
3:21 pm
Damn straight! What the helll does ’syndicated’ mean, anyway?
May 3rd, 2005
4:01 pm
Syndication: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndication
If you’ve never seen Doonesbury - a cartoon ‘funny’ that appears in The Guardian - then the above strip will make no sense. But you really aren’t missing much, on both sides of the experience.
May 4th, 2005
4:05 pm
The Doonesbury in the Guardian is totally crap. I feel hatred for it.
May 4th, 2005
6:09 pm
Doonesbury’s so lame. Its like one of those ubiquitous american sitcoms that somehow make it over to this country (clinging on to the underside of a boat I imagine) to haunt day time TV- some vague hint at contemporary issues, banal characters, crappy or non-existant plot lines, dis-affected youth..etc. but perhaps doonesbury’s actually an incredibly witty satire on such programs or on the state of America in general (it wishes!)
I like this spoof of it tho.
May 4th, 2005
11:22 pm
Hmmm, torn between two positions. So I went and found G2s scattered around my flat and found one strip set in Iraq, and one about Tom Daschle. So I think that evidence supports both sides.
One side of me suspects Doonesbury is one of those things that people don’t really understand, enjoy or like but pretend to for intellectual or social credibility. This list includes the National Theatre’s Programming, half of Woody Allen’s output, David Lynch films, a lot of Bob Dylan records, ‘Transformer’ by lou reed, Brett Easton Eliis novels and other things. It’s fun to make you own list.
The other side of me suspects that if people don’t get it they should try harder. James Joyce wrote Ulysses with the intention that his readers would have to read a lot of other books, histories etc, so that they understood it. We’ve moved away from that idea and think everything should be accessible, open and inclusive. What about a challenge, eh?
So not sure really, is the fault with it or us? Hmm.
May 4th, 2005
11:23 pm
But I forgot to mention, good spoof.
May 4th, 2005
11:55 pm
No way is Doonesbury comparable to Ulysees. I know what you mean (partic in comparison to Brett Easton Ellis — you have to know the characters then you get extra understanding from it) , but I think that for anyone to grapple and endure with the meaning, the item itself has to be good enough each time to stick with. Doonesbury’s just crap. Try swamp thing.
May 5th, 2005
12:05 am
I didn’t really mean that to come out like that. What I simly meant was, Doonesbury’s the only thing you’ve listed that hasn’t ever made me want to try harder. But there’s no accounting for taste.
May 5th, 2005
1:21 am
I think B.Easton-Ellis’ writing - and therefore the reading of his books (only read three books… but I think that’s enough to comment) - is not in any way about social or intellectual credibility… I think his books are mock visceral and largely satirical in their content, presented in an almost comic strip style. I enjoyed and liked American Psycho and I think that any book that can be written that’s fallout includes the FBI opening a file on the author because they are concerned that he may actually be a psychopath is, if nothing else, quite bloody interesting… and funny. I’m not saying this because I wish to be socialy accepted… I gave up on that long ago!
I’m tempted to tear apart all of the cited “cool because I want to get it” list compiled by This Space… but I shan’t on this occassion other than to say… the reason for want-tearing is because these things are largely “got” because there actually is a justified reason for why they are “got”… yes we may accept (and mistakenly laud)the odd discrepency in genius, but its only because the genius exists there to begin with… it’s just as silly and dangerous to lay into something because it is widely critically accaimed and you, personally, don’t get it or think that it’s wank. You could be wrong… or you could just have an opinion… opinions are healthy.
Lastly… a “lot” of Bob Dylan’s records? lot lot lot lot lot lot lot lot… i wil disagree until the end of eternity, the reason for which (as I have previously stated) is not in any way regarding social/intellectual acceptance… i would quite happily exist within the region of complete non-acceptance as long as I have Blood On The Tracks, Highway 61, Bringing It All Back Home, Another Side Of, The Freewhelin’, Time Out Of Mind, Blone On Blonde and even friggin’ New Morning on my shelf and on my player than kowtow to whatever it is that intellectuals and society are wanting me at any given moment to dig.
Phew! That there is just about an essay… sorry… what were we originally talking about now?
Oh yes… the comic… you know, I’ve been reading the Guardian (as my choice, socially and intellectually accepted newspaper) for two and a half years now (as long as I’ve been in the country) and I’ve never, ever, not once, seen this comic strip… this disturbs both me and the Amazon rain forest.
The only Guardian comic strip that comes to my mind is that poncey one about writers that’s in the Saturday literary Review section. I would love for someone to satirise that…
May 5th, 2005
1:58 am
I thought the point he/she was making about Easton Ellis and Lynch particularly might have been that the more of it you know, the more you pick up on the cross-references, and so that filtered across to doonesbury because maybe if we’d all read it relentlessly then we’d understand how all the strips interlinked more. I could be wrong. And Doonesbury’s still a pile of wank.
May 6th, 2005
12:02 am
No, Oliver… the following quoted paragraph illustrates my point and not yours…
“One side of me suspects Doonesbury is one of those things that people don’t really understand, enjoy or like but pretend to for intellectual or social credibility.”
…that, to me, is the key point but the rest follows it up…
“This list includes the National Theatre’s Programming, half of Woody Allen’s output, David Lynch films, a lot of Bob Dylan records, ‘Transformer’ by lou reed, Brett Easton Eliis novels and other things.”
There is, apparently a third paragraph (of This Space’s comment) that begins with “the other side of me thinks” or some such nonsense… I don’t know… I didn’t read it… I was too easily offended by crimes against art in paragraph two. I’m like that… easily accessed… god, that sounds sordid!
So yeah… and so on… just read the last bit of that comment though… is the fault with it or us? I have answer for that, I’ll tell you… by god do I have an answer for that!
May 6th, 2005
11:08 am
I wasn’t saying you were *wrong* ABLETT, I was just trying to ventriloquise a more interesting point about interlinking-ness out of the point I didn’t like about “the things people want to like for credibility etc blah”. Are there really that many people wanting to like those things for intellectual kudos? I kinda think you either like em or you don’t. meh. It’s not a bone. Ok if I did say you were wrong I didn’t MEAN it. foight! grrr.
these are my sentiments:
1. I don’t even undertand what an intellectual is, in my mind it IS someone who ponces about referencing Ulysees.
2. You wanna read Borges. (laughing now).
3. the answer is c, Albert the Great - all the rest are Welsh.
4. I’ve said it once and i’ll say it again: Walt Disney was full body criogenized.
You’d understand what I meant if you’d read The Hunting of the Snark. I wonder if you got to vote, and I wonder, if all parties except the BNP said they’d ban bob, would you vote for em??
May 6th, 2005
11:09 am
See it?
Ban The BOB
WWJD?
May 6th, 2005
2:55 pm
the thing with Doonesbury is, I’m not sure its a question of getting it or not. I’m not sure there’s much to get. I think if you’d been reading it from the beginning it would make sense, because I think its just a fairly boring (slightly satirical) narrative that’s been chopped up. Obviously it has the potential to confuse the occassional reader and reward the loyal (although if you consider it a reward you should probably get out more). It’d be pretty much the same as if you cut up any comic book into four frame sections and showed people one a week. I don’t actually think its clever or particularly surreal, its just that we only see snippets of the whole ’story’, and the snippets on their own can’t really make much sense, without reference to the previous ones.
I’m not sure its exactly the same with things on rent’s list. Although in some ways it is because basically if you get the references/symbols…etc its a lot easier to understand. The difference is the construction of doonesbury isn’t half as clever in a creative way. The construction of a Lynch film for example is great because it can have quite a profound effect, even if you don’t ‘get it’, and once you do start to get even an idea of what its all about (use of symbols and how the narrative works..etc) then even though it might be disturbing its pretty darn satisfying too.
I think all the examples are just like ‘jig-saw puzzles’ really. You have to make the effort to put the pieces together. I think Doonesbury is a pretty easy puzzle with big pieces, but you just have to put the time in, if you can be bothered. The pieces would probably all be numbered on the back too! Ultimately I reckon the picture would be pretty boring tho (maybe one of those pics of a country cottage or something. not very satisfying). Something like a Lynch film, is obviously a more complex puzzle, different sized pieces and more of them perhaps, but I think the overall picture would be a lot more intense and rewarding. But surely all art is a puzzle of sorts anyway. In some books/paintings/songs/films all the peices are all numbered and already fitted together, but even though its easy to work out it might not be as satisfying because the overall image may not be as nice as something you have to take time to piece together. I don’t think any puzzle has particular merit just becasue it take longer to fit the pieces together. The picture could be rubbish. Its the same with really ‘intellectual’ style books…etc - sometimes they’re too clever for their own good, and either you can’t fit the puzzle together or the picture is crap and doesn’t match the one on the box anyway.
May 7th, 2005
1:33 am
Take it slow.
Take it sloooowwww
(is that sexy?)
I do try
May 7th, 2005
11:33 am
I’m not aloud to vote but I voted for the BNP anyway… so there’s some kind of answer to your riddle Oliver!
May 7th, 2005
12:36 pm
That’s a shame you can’t vote. Did I ever show you my other riddle? it’s nice
y y u r
y y u b
i c u r
y y 4 me
May 7th, 2005
12:37 pm
but not true.
May 7th, 2005
2:43 pm
It clears things up a bit if my original comment has a caveat that ’some’ things ’some’ people say they like without actually doing so. Otherwise what I said can be seen as deeply patronising and offensive in a many ways, so sorry ’bout that.
However, we understand ‘emperor’s new clothes syndrome’ as existing, there are quite lauded things that are quite possibly rubbish, but sometimes people can be nervous to express their opinions, as you’ve ended up with art fascism. Is everything viewed as good really shit but people are too nervous to say so? No, of course not. But some stuff is. For example, Lord of the Rings winning the Best Picture Oscar. Please persuade me how it won for artistic merit and not for filling Scrooge McDuck’s vault.
It’s weird isn’t it that we’re not really willing to tell someone their opinion is wrong? I mean lots of opinions are false, but we don’t say so, because everyone has a right to an opinion. Weird.
I read Americna Psycho, and know what you mean about the cartoon-like visciousness, and it being a description of those whith shallow, empty lives described in rich prose with amusing vigenttes as they view them as important. That’s sort of interesting and funny, but then there’s another three hundred pages of the same. But then I might not be understanding it.
Da Man, no, certainly, just because you have to work harder doesn’t make something better, but I think a lot of people object to having to work at a something at all.
May 9th, 2005
2:54 am
All I’m really interested in is seeing an “Alien versus Predator” style “Doonesbury versus Garfield” graphic fusion. Can anyone provide such a thing?
Maybe it could also include other pithy characters from newspaper cartoon supplements. Like that one about a basset dog who always does something ‘hilarious’ like getting mud on the sofa. Or those two naked eight year-olds with droopy eyes and no genitalia.
But not Calvin and Hobbes. Never Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin and Hobbes are fantastic.
May 9th, 2005
8:38 pm
I don’t like the naked eight year olds who are married and define love. It’s unsettling and I don’t know where to look.
May 10th, 2005
5:41 pm
Have you seen the adverts that they do for tube ettiquete?
Sick