EVIL IMPUTED IS EVIL BETRAYED

When accusations fly, keep your peace, focus on the accuser, fasten on his words.  What he charges will be a guess as to the contents of your mind, a dead certainty as the contents of his own.

THAT'S RIGHT, OLLIE.

We all have learned that the world and its oceans were navigated and conquered by Hardy Seafaring Men.  It was the evident absence of Laurel Seafaring Men that depresses me.

BLAME

If you are experienced and qualified, if you have tried and fought and triumphed, if your life is distinguished with achievement – you are to blame for something.

9/11 AND SHORTLY THEREAFTER

I was thinking not long ago about the oddness of, well, just everything – everything in life being indisputably odd at the very least, and capable of escalating to horrific at the very most.  I was thinking this because of two 9 Chickweed Lane cartoons that appeared in the week following the massacre of 9/11.

These are the two cartoons, the first published September 15th, 2001, the second September 17th.

(click these to see larger versions.)

Both of these drew strong commentary when they appeared.  You can probably remember the mood at the time, particularly if you lived in the U.S.  The first one prompted an eruption of letters from people who either took it to be a tasteless joke at the expense of all those who died in the attacks four days earlier (which was understandable) or a tearful memorial (which I couldn't understand at all).  The ire the first one roused was ferocious.  The second was taken to be a mini-sermon with a questionable gag line.

I spent quite a while sending out letters to explain that daily cartoons for my syndicate were composed and submitted four weeks prior to publication (that's the odd part – a silly little gag, by dint of coincidence, turns into a big, tasteless jape).  A lot of readers did not want to believe me, and called me a liar.  As I say, a horror had taken place; and even my explanation of the lead time for publishing cartoons did not mollify everybody.  They just needed to be angry.

When I look at these cartoons now, I'm amazed.  I remember hastily reviewing all my other submissions, as yet to appear over the next four weeks before my lead time caught up with 9/11.  I hoped I wouldn't be stepping heavily into the tragedy anymore.  I've never asked around, but I wonder how many other cartoonists found themselves in the same boat.

IF THIS IS LILLIPUT, IT MUST BE FRIDAY

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

                                                         --Jonathan Swift

I SIT IN THE SMALLEST ROOM IN MY HOUSE. I HAVE YOUR CRITICISM BEFORE ME. IN A MOMENT IT WILL BE BEHIND ME. --Max Reger

Criticism tends to be self-portraiture.  And the harsher and more pitiless the criticism, the more monochrome the self-portrait.

JENNY KISSED ME

Jenny kissed me when we met,
   Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
   Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
   Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
   Jenny kissed me.

                                      --Leigh Hunt

ANTIGONISH and LATER ANTIGONISHES - ALIBI

As I was going up the stair,
   I met a man who wasn't there!
He wasn't there again to-day!
   I wish, I wish he'd stay away!

As I was falling down the stair
I met a bump that wasn't there;
It might have put me on the shelf
Except I wasn't there myself.

                                 --Hughes Mearns

APOCRYPHA WITH A CUP OF JOE

I recently read the assertion that my work has benefited from a moderating guidance by fans.

I blew a portion of just-imbibed coffee out my nose – fortunately it was tepid – and thought to myself, upon recovering, that the statement, if nugatory in all other respects, did contribute toward a good nasal wash.

There is one reason why I would as lief submit, lashed to a telephone pole, to hernia surgery with a crochet hook, than subject my work to husbandry by any group:  Those who gravitate to my comic art, day after day, do so impelled by a desire to see what my mind has produced for entertainment.  It is an issue of trust that I must provide my own ideas, executed my own damn way, for good or bad, undiluted, uncorrupted by any other voice.  Art by democracy – other than being a disastrously jejune and fatuous idea – would amount to a dereliction of duty to my reader.

When you seek out my work, you will receive my efforts – mine always and only.

If you want something produced by a herd, expect manure.

"Après moi le déluge." --Louis XV

Until then just jiggle the handle.

NEUROSIS IS ALWAYS A SUBSTITUTE FOR LEGITIMATE SUFFERING. ––Carl Jung

Subjective view:

"Liar" – A word most frequently served hot, seasoned with exclamation marks - best uttered unencumbered by evidence or a sense of shame.


Objective view:
Oh, for the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad. (--adapted from Raphael Sabbatini, Scaramouche)


Never turn your back on a person who would not have you laugh:
Stanch a laugh if you would avoid releasing gas from the pompous. An elevator is a good place to observe this rule.

MAN IS THE ONLY ANIMAL THAT BLUSHES. OR NEEDS TO. --Samuel Langhorne Clemens

So far, I have heard that one is entitled to one's rights, one's convictions, one's privacy, one's happiness –– except when it inconveniences you.  The other thing I have heard is that this can be said imperially, without the slightest blush of shame.  Something must be wrong with your circulation.

                                                          ANON  (a great writer)

MOTTO, ORDER OF THE GARTER 1348

Honi soit qui mal y pense.

AND ANOTHER NICE LITTLE RHYME THAT'S AWFULLY BIG NONETHELESS

KNIGHT-IN-ARMOUR

Whenever I'm a shining Knight,

I buckle on my armour tight;

And then I look about for things,

Like Rushings-Out, and Rescuings,

And Savings from the Dragon's Lair,

And fighting all the Dragons there.

And sometimes when our fights begin,

I think I'll let the Dragons win . . .

And then I think perhaps I won't,

Because they're Dragons, and I don't.

                                     A. A. Milne

AND FOR THOSE OF YOU WHOSE MINDS CANNOT UNDERSTAND WORDS AS YOU OUGHT, "FANNY," IN THIS INSTANCE, IS A WOMAN'S NAME

                     

                             DEAR FANNY

"She has beauty, but still you must keep your heart cool;
  she has wit, but you must not be caught so";
Thus Reason advises, but Reason's a fool,
  And 'tis not the first time I have thought so,
    Dear Fanny.

"She is lovely!"  Then love her, nor let the bliss fly;
  'Tis the charm of youth's vanishing season:
Thus love has advised me, and who will deny
  That Love reasons much better than Reason,
    Dear Fanny?

                                                       Thomas Moore

ANOTHER FAVORITE QUOTE EXCEPT IN THIS CASE A POEM

 THE GROANING BOARD

A buttery, sugary, syrupy waffle –––

Gee, but I love it somep'n awful.

Ginger-cakes dripping with chocolate goo,

Oo!  How I love 'em!  Oo! Oo! OO!

                                                         Pink

A BIERCE MOMENT

POSITIVE, adj.  Mistaken at the top of one's voice.

ENOUGH OF ALL THAT...

Here is a quote  –  my very favorite quote of all quotes – written by Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw, 1818-1885).

Found

A malteese soprano kat, about 12 months old,

singing old hundred on a picket fence,

late last thursda nite, whichever person owns

sed kat will find him (or her, according

to circumstances) in a vakant lot,

just bak ov our hous, still butiful in death.

This has nothing to do with anything, but I love it and feel it belongs here.


Previously, in this spot I recorded a true and faithful account of my actions in eliminating the Pibgorn comments board at Gocomics, accompanied by the convictions that underpin them.  (Anybody who wants to know what I wrote can log on to http://officialpibgorn.livejournal.com/ for the transcript.)

 I was told that these words were met with a generous serving of invective and accusations of lying (people nearly always call it lying when they don't like the truth).  That was followed here at Pibgorn headquarters by an astonishing gush of e-mail from previously silent fans offering their support and encouragement (you remember that scene in "Miracle on 34th Street" when Edmund Gwenn's bacon was saved by the U.S. Post Office, and Gene Lockhart found for Santa Claus and William Frawley walked with relief from the courtroom and little Natalie Wood got her wish?).  I am convinced I never should have heard from these generous individuals but for all the lively contumely accreting on the Gocomics blog.  For that alone I am most grateful.

I also tip my hat to those at the blog who spoke in my defense.  You spoke in fairness to me, and in recognition of my rights, even despite your personal wishes.

It is daunting, the calisthenic agility with which so many of my erstwhile comments board fans bounded from indulgent patronage to, by all accounts, foaming-at-the-mouth hatred or attitudes of violated virtue worthy of Delsarte (a leap that, I contend, should get extra points for execution, except that the figure skating scoring system is too complicated, and that the level of artistry rather negated the leap).  I never read the posts, but my informants tell me that the feeding frenzy achieved the febrile pitch that can only be likened to a kindergarten lynch mob (too short actually to throw the noose over a tree limb) augmented by trolls (bringing dignity to proceedings, as is their wont, by wetting their pants).

When I die, I want to die laughing.  I won't forget this.  Thank you.

To quote Dorothy Parker, who also, by the wildest of coincidences, did not write with a comments board or a public forum attached to her:  "...But I shall stay the way I am, because I do not give a damn."

POST SCRIPT

"Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right."

–– Laurens Van Der Post,  The Lost World of The Kalahari

NOT MY FORTE

"Interesting stories are never about people who make the right decisions." Edda said that not a very long time ago.

I write about people who employ the weaker part of the blade – the part known as the foible. In my own conduct, it is the area I wield almost exclusively. I shouldn't mind being a better fencer; but at least this allows me to view my characters with pity and affection. I wouldn't call myself generous, but I avoid the temptation to write with a hard heart – an activity that leads to morality plays and straw men, and is best suited to the critic.

Pitilessness, anyway, is the manure from which sanctimony blooms. One wants to step in it not all that often.

REST CURE

For those eagle-eyed enough to notice, the Chickweed daily I drew for October 2nd contained a formal error. The whole rest in the cartoon depended from the third line rather than the fourth (from the bottom) line of the staff. This was, as I say, a formal error, because the placement of the rest does not change its meaning. No musician would have stopped upon seeing it, unable to proceed, flummoxed, paralyzed. ("The whole rest is hanging from the third line! Mein Gott! I can't move! It's...it's like the worst moment in "Alien"!)

Whole and half rests can, in fact, move at will all over the staff, depending upon spacing of other notes, sometimes appearing in the void above or below the staves (usually in choral reductions). However, a whole rest also has that remarkable ability to represent silence throughout a bar, irrespective of the bar's meter (it can be 4/4, 2/4, 3/8, 6/8 - it doesn't matter). In the bar I drew, that was the rest's function. I might have drawn four rests, arranged vertically, to account for four voice parts in the piece Edda and Amos were playing. To be absolutely accurate, I should have drawn two pairs of staves, consistent with a piano, four hand, piece, along with four fermatas.

The point of the gag, when all is said and done, was the fermata. The consternation, light though it was, over the placement of the whole rest, was a distraction from the whole point of the little romantic entertainment (in fact, the original drawing featured no staff at all - just the big fermata - then I got all fancy pants).

And here is the thing about my complete cartooning oeuvre. It fairly bristles with errors. It is a briar patch of mistakes, inaccuracies, misplaced thumbs, extra nostrils, misspellings...you name it. It is a cross I must bear.

Possibly I need a rest. But only on the fourth line from the bottom. Or half a rest. But that's on the third line, which is a whole nuther circle of hell.

"LAYING DOWN" MY PEN? ...FIRST OF ALL, ISN'T THE COMMENT RATHER, UM, PERSONAL?

For some reason, Gran's departure to Austria has hatched the canard that my strip must be singing its swan song. That is the word that circulates back to me, and I am always the last one to hear. One commenter insisted that he can't see how I can continue (revealing a fascinating insight as to what he can't see – but otherwise conveying nothing to do with the strip or my plans).

As a matter of record, allow me to quell the whispers and state that "9 Chickweed Lane" marches on, with nary a thought contrariwise.

How do these rumors get going anyway? Perhaps they are milled at Thorax's "Bureau of They."

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT (WEEKLY)

Entertainment Weekly posted a blog today that really oughtn't to be missed.

http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/09/09/9-chickweed-lane-is-all-kinds-of-awesome/

Thanks to Mr. Adam Vary for his kind and articulate words.

AND DID I FORGET TO SAY BACK ATCHA?

Again, I feel I should state that the cataract of mail I have been receiving about the story of Edie and Kiesl leaves me astonished and gratified.

Most of the time, one works on a story in long periods of silence, punctuated by an occasional note of approbation, the odd diatribe. That's all part of the profession. Since Edie's story began late in October of 2009, the mail began to gush at me in a relentless flow – very pleased, appreciative mail, the sort of mail that reaches out to shake my hand and keep shaking and not let go me until it has said all it intended to say, and then clap me on the back for good measure. To this day the numbers burgeon. My back has been clapped a lot.

I haven't been able to thank you all in an adequate way, except to say "thank you" in this blog, and hope you're reading it. You buoy me, you make it all worth the while, and.....well.....thank you.

Brooke

SEEMS TO ME I'VE HEARD THAT SONG BEFORE

Today's Chickweed cartoon had, after all was said and done, a familiar ring. Then a fan posted a Sunday cartoon I did in 2007; and what one always hopes won't happen had clearly happened. I drew the same gag then: blue line sketches showing how the character is created for the cartoon. I had no memory of it; but it obviously was a voice calling to me from the past. This sort of thing occurs much more frequently than one would like, and after 17 years or more, it is a miracle if one can forestall repetition. Here are the final panels of both cartoons.

The difference, basically the only difference, is that in 2007 I drew Isabel. This time it was Edda. I think she would be glad.

July 12th, 2010 – 17 Candles

Today (I thought I ought to observe it) is the 17th anniversary of 9 Chickweed Lane. All organic, no fertilizers, no pesticides, no hormones; of every jot and tittle of it I am proud.

AN EARLY LAST STRAW

In January of 1996, I drew this innocent (to my mind) little cartoon. It went past my syndicate editors at the time, who, I admit, possessed the combined I.Q. of drain hair, however, they - as I - saw nothing wrong with it. It passed the scrutiny of features editors both in North America and abroad, also without hiccup. Then it appeared in print, and Sunday schools country wide were curtailed so their teachers might retire to restroom stalls and object in hyperventilating privacy. Chickweed was canceled forthwith, most noticeably at the Houston Chronicle.

A letter sent to my syndicate, and speaking for many like-minded people, blurted, "THAT IS THE LAST STRAW!" Previously, I gathered, I had been providing enough straw to supply a good sized dairy farm and have enough left over for a tableau vivant nativity crèche; but the very last straw was this one.

For those of you who cannot see the cause of the objection, you are fine, unsullied people, most likely dull company, but fine nonetheless. For those of you who see an act of oral sex, shame on you. Your Sunday school class is waiting.






©1996 Brooke McEldowney

(click the cartoon for larger, ahem, presentation.)

Cartoon Time...and...If Yer Thinkin' What I Think Yer Thinkin'...and...THANKS

Passing my eye with reluctance over comment and speculation about Chickweed (reluctant because I know all the answers and am, therefore, tempted to blurt them), I have noticed a lot of math come to bear in divining Juliette's age. The question as to the fair lady's years has become a matter of some dispute now that the current Chickweed story has become fixed in time, beginning in 1944 and moving on to 1954. Drawing on earlier Chickweed cartoons, various readers have been able to provide proof that she was born in 1960, 1955, and anywhere else on the temporal spectrum. They also point out that in my earlier strips time moved at half speed, one year in cartoon time for every two in reality. I have also been attributed with stating Juliette's age, proving that she cannot be whatever else anybody is putting forth as proof positive.

I just want to point out that nothing previously stated or written or drawn or discussed means anything anymore. When I began the story of Edie, Kiesl and Bill, I set it in the final years of World War II, at which point the floppy, imprecise world of the cartoon timeline evanesced, leaving not a rack behind. We are now fixed to an actual passage of events. I can't play fast and loose as I had before. The Timex keeps ticking. So forget the math.

Anyway, ultimately, my characters are who and what I say they are, and they say what I tell'm to say (except, of course, when they refuse).

================

Moving on:

I read from time to time ascriptions of my thinking, as revealed in what I draw, stated without doubt, or second thought. Using my work as evidence, I am imputed with the loftiest of philosophies at one end to the most vulgar and disreputable obsessions at the other. These imputations are stated by actual fans (not detractors) all without even the slightest question as to accuracy ("Dear Sir, Am I correct in inferring that you are a scuzzy fetishist and S&M purveyor?").

They are also, inevitably, unerringly, wrong.

What is revealed by such commentary is not what is on my mind when I draw, say, a shapely ankle or write a rococo locution; it reveals only what is on the reader's mind.

To quote Drusilla, "You object to what you think I am doing here – even more so, that you think what you think I am doing here; and, beyond that, what you think about thinking what you think I'm doing here. But you don't object in the least to what I'm actually doing."

===============

And finally:

I have received an astonishing amount of mail from readers about the story of Edie Ernst, U.S.O. Singer. I have never received so much mail before. I haven't been able to answer it and concurrently keep the Chickweed and Pibgorn dynamos turning. So, please, to all of you who have written to express your compliments and kind words regarding this story, my thanks.

You are most kind.