Everything (and a special commentary): September 11
A well-known joke about Rudy Giuliani is that every sentence he utters has to include three things: a noun, a verb, and "9/11." So is it with the comics page this Sunday, with virtually every strip poised to offer a tribute of some kind to the terrorist attacks of a decade ago. So far, it appears as if the tributes will generally adopt one of two themes -- the "moving" Big Picture (usually with the corollary positive spin of We Came Out Of This A Better Nation) or the "touching" Be Kind To Your Loved Ones approaches found in our first two strips.
The first tack is typified by Crankshaft, which features Cranky watching a televisied news program where a reporter (I first thought it was Cindy Summers, but then remembered she transferred to foreign reporting) strikes an "inspriational" tone using the convenient plot device of a still-growing tree near the site of the twin towers as a stand-in for Our National Determination To Persevere And Triumph.
Ernest Hemingway once famously commented that the one thing a writer needs is "a 100% accurate bullshit detector," and it seems that neither Batiuk nor Colmes would meet Papa Hemingway's standards. Generic reporter starts off by declaring 9/11 history's "worst nightmare." While I don't want to denigrate the three-thousand-odd civilians who lost their lives on that day, nor minimize al-Qaeda's crime against humanity, I can think of about six million dead Jews who might challenge that designation. Not to mention the several hundred thousand noncombatant victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nor those who died in the auto-da-fés of the Inquisition, the Armenian genocide, the Soviet gulags, the Bataan Death March, or the "killing fields" of the Khmer Rouge. What, for all-too-many people (Batiuk and Colmes apparently included), seems to determine "history's worst nightmare" is not the scope of the tragedy, but that It Happened To Us. Obviously, when it comes to foreigners, two thousand of their lives don't hold a candle to one of ours.
And the bullshit just keeps on coming, with generic blond reporter's would-be comforting words about knowledge always triumphing over ignorance and open-mindedness over fear. Obviously, this is shorthand for "America Roolz, Islam Droolz," but, ask yourselves: were knowledge and open, inquisitive minds our hallmark after 9/11? Was it not, rather, years of fear and ignorance that caused us to rush to throw away our most fundamental civil liberties (including the rights to privacy and fair trials) and charge headlong into a "pre-emptive" war against a country that had not attacked us, and that had nothing to do with al-Qaeda or 9/11? (On that subject, verified civilian deaths in that unnecessary war came to at least 102,417, or more that thirty-three times the death toll on 9/11. What was that about history's "greatest nightmare," again?)
Our second approach is demonstrated by Zits, in which Thing 1 and Thing 2 use their signature Surrealistic Visual (Lack-Of)Humor to show the Parental Units' determination to Hug Their Child More while reflecting on 9/11. (Or maybe they're trying to crush him like a Boa Constrictor, in the spirit of our ex-village idiotPresident's call to "destroy all evildoers?") Of course, Sally Forth took the same tack, and I suspect we'll see it a lot from the "family" strips that don't want to relive the tragedy of the attacks themselves. But, really...I'll never be one to say that you shouldn't pay more attention to your loved ones, but is it because they might get killed by the Big Bad Terrorists at any moment? Surely, life is uncertain, and we should never take our family members and friends for granted, but the fact is that, if anyone close to you were to be taken suddenly, it would far more likely be because of a auto accident, or maybe a sudden heart attack or stroke, rather than terrorism. For that matter, I'm pretty sure that the odds of even being killed by lightning are several orders of magnitude higher than perishing in a terrorist attack. But that only raises a bigger question: why should you only stop taking those close to you for granted because they might die suddenly? What's wrong with treating them with consideration and kindness even if you have many decades together ahead of you?
A critic recently made a distinction between "art" and "false art" in that real art reminds us of truths we may not have known or find uncomfortable, while false art "only tells us the truths we've long known, or the lies we want to believe." Judging from what I've seen in their 9/11 tribute strips, there's not a true artist to be found on the comics page.
Once again, this isn't to brush off the events of a decade ago, or dismiss the victims and survivors of those awful attacks. But a little perspective is sorely wanting. Much more horrible things have happened to many peoples and nations throughout history. We're not the first to have suffered such a loss. It doesn't somehow become worse than any of the others just because the victims were Americans this time. And, IMHO, it does no one good to spin fables of how "we became a better and nobler nation because of this" when, from all I can see of who we were then and who we are now, no such thing ever happened, however much people would like to pretend it's the case.
(There's also a third approach, typified by Luann -- ignore the whole thing in your main comic, and then tack on a tag "tribute" panel that has nothing to do with the rest of the strip. And is Brad back in his firefighter's uniform an anachronism or foreshadowing?)
The first tack is typified by Crankshaft, which features Cranky watching a televisied news program where a reporter (I first thought it was Cindy Summers, but then remembered she transferred to foreign reporting) strikes an "inspriational" tone using the convenient plot device of a still-growing tree near the site of the twin towers as a stand-in for Our National Determination To Persevere And Triumph.
Ernest Hemingway once famously commented that the one thing a writer needs is "a 100% accurate bullshit detector," and it seems that neither Batiuk nor Colmes would meet Papa Hemingway's standards. Generic reporter starts off by declaring 9/11 history's "worst nightmare." While I don't want to denigrate the three-thousand-odd civilians who lost their lives on that day, nor minimize al-Qaeda's crime against humanity, I can think of about six million dead Jews who might challenge that designation. Not to mention the several hundred thousand noncombatant victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nor those who died in the auto-da-fés of the Inquisition, the Armenian genocide, the Soviet gulags, the Bataan Death March, or the "killing fields" of the Khmer Rouge. What, for all-too-many people (Batiuk and Colmes apparently included), seems to determine "history's worst nightmare" is not the scope of the tragedy, but that It Happened To Us. Obviously, when it comes to foreigners, two thousand of their lives don't hold a candle to one of ours.
And the bullshit just keeps on coming, with generic blond reporter's would-be comforting words about knowledge always triumphing over ignorance and open-mindedness over fear. Obviously, this is shorthand for "America Roolz, Islam Droolz," but, ask yourselves: were knowledge and open, inquisitive minds our hallmark after 9/11? Was it not, rather, years of fear and ignorance that caused us to rush to throw away our most fundamental civil liberties (including the rights to privacy and fair trials) and charge headlong into a "pre-emptive" war against a country that had not attacked us, and that had nothing to do with al-Qaeda or 9/11? (On that subject, verified civilian deaths in that unnecessary war came to at least 102,417, or more that thirty-three times the death toll on 9/11. What was that about history's "greatest nightmare," again?)
Our second approach is demonstrated by Zits, in which Thing 1 and Thing 2 use their signature Surrealistic Visual (Lack-Of)Humor to show the Parental Units' determination to Hug Their Child More while reflecting on 9/11. (Or maybe they're trying to crush him like a Boa Constrictor, in the spirit of our ex-village idiotPresident's call to "destroy all evildoers?") Of course, Sally Forth took the same tack, and I suspect we'll see it a lot from the "family" strips that don't want to relive the tragedy of the attacks themselves. But, really...I'll never be one to say that you shouldn't pay more attention to your loved ones, but is it because they might get killed by the Big Bad Terrorists at any moment? Surely, life is uncertain, and we should never take our family members and friends for granted, but the fact is that, if anyone close to you were to be taken suddenly, it would far more likely be because of a auto accident, or maybe a sudden heart attack or stroke, rather than terrorism. For that matter, I'm pretty sure that the odds of even being killed by lightning are several orders of magnitude higher than perishing in a terrorist attack. But that only raises a bigger question: why should you only stop taking those close to you for granted because they might die suddenly? What's wrong with treating them with consideration and kindness even if you have many decades together ahead of you?
A critic recently made a distinction between "art" and "false art" in that real art reminds us of truths we may not have known or find uncomfortable, while false art "only tells us the truths we've long known, or the lies we want to believe." Judging from what I've seen in their 9/11 tribute strips, there's not a true artist to be found on the comics page.
Once again, this isn't to brush off the events of a decade ago, or dismiss the victims and survivors of those awful attacks. But a little perspective is sorely wanting. Much more horrible things have happened to many peoples and nations throughout history. We're not the first to have suffered such a loss. It doesn't somehow become worse than any of the others just because the victims were Americans this time. And, IMHO, it does no one good to spin fables of how "we became a better and nobler nation because of this" when, from all I can see of who we were then and who we are now, no such thing ever happened, however much people would like to pretend it's the case.
(There's also a third approach, typified by Luann -- ignore the whole thing in your main comic, and then tack on a tag "tribute" panel that has nothing to do with the rest of the strip. And is Brad back in his firefighter's uniform an anachronism or foreshadowing?)
