comic battles

Pearls Before Swine is probably one of the funnier comic strips I have read in a long time.

I was a frequent admirer of strips like Calvin and Hobbes and Berkely Brethead's "Bloom County/Outlands" strips. Hell, I grew up reading the compilations of Garfield strips (sue me, I was young. But lately I have been at a loss for good strips to read, but Pastis' PBS is about as good as they get. Sure, when I get a chance I'll read Boondocks and Dilbert and even Baby Blues if I become desperate enough. But nuthin' tickles the old funny bone like the antics of Pig and Rat.

I've even watched as Pastis' has been taking pot shots at other strips, both celebrated and not-even-partially-mediocre. On one level Pastis' is paying tribute to the old strips, some of them carried on by estate trustees such as Garfield and Peanuts (I think a little of them died when their respective creators bit the dust) and he's also blatantly acknowledging how much crap is getting published.

These attacks have even been reciprocated with other cartooners (if that's the preferred nomenclature) take shots at Pastis, who's rendering style is anything but complex, and sometimes the jokes are even simpler. But that's a style I'm accustomed to. My own short career as a cartoon illustrator for Southern Illinois University's student publication the Daily Egyptian and its weekly entertainment edition the Pulse. At one point I was drawing about three different comic strips a week, which isn't the average of about four or five through the summer, but for a guy that was laying the paper out everynight and trying to keep his head above occupational and educational waters, it was pretty impressive.

So when after retaliating from one of my potshots, a young artist decided to accuse me of being sloppy I took a little exception. He claimed for a guy that only drew one comic a week, the least I could do was catch spelling errors in the strip. What this guy didn't know was that I was drawing three a week (two under pseudonyms) and working a nearly full-time position, while trying to keep a girlfriend at home happy. She ended up becoming upset and we parted ways later, but oh well.

It was interesting to watch our little feud develope every week, turn for turn until he decided to make e-mail this statement to me and complain to my boss about it. He was whining over our little war of strips, because apparently it had upset him. I'll be honest, I took some brutal criticism from this guy and I took it in stride. He hadn't realized that I was around when two other 'toonists had their own little mutually-agreed upon war. One of those guys is now a good friend of mine. Hell, I even took over one of his brainchild's and ran the strip entitled "Let's Save Iraq" a political cartoon that ran weekly in the Pulse for two to three semesters before I couldn't handle doing a strip and working at the same time.

But I watch these comic panel wars emerge (with first-hand experience even) and I realize that eventually in any walk of life that two egos are going to but heads in their disposition and feuds emerge. Sports is a fairly common occurence, but there are other venues where hotter heads go head-to-head.

Philosophy: Karl Popper vs. Ludwig Wiggenstein
Music: The East Coast vs West Coast rap battles and numerous others
Writers often have their own wars going on that don't get as publicized.
How many others have there been?

I guess the ultimate question is whether these little tussles actually benefit the art in which they emerge or do they hurt it? I think any criticism is good criticism as long as it is GOOD criticism, that is criticism that is well constructed and not just "this sucks" which I have been of doing at least on one occassion.

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