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Submitted: July 12, 2010
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Pint Sized Demagoguesby *jhaumann

Cartoons & Comics / Traditional Media / Comics / Strips

While we all no there's no shortage of ham-fisted political cartoons in the funny pages, I think the worst examples of these are the ones that use children as their main characters. The most notorious among them being Scott Stantis' "Prickly City" on the right and John Hambrock's "The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee" on the left as both feature a pre-adolescent one-dimensional mouthpiece as a main character.
For alleged children, Carmen from "Prickly City" and the eponymous Edison Lee really aren't particularly childlike at all. One could argue that they are precocious, but even precocious kids from comics past like Calvin from "Calvin & Hobbes" and the kids from "Bloom County" showed their child side with much more frequency. They aren't even much as alleged characters either. Politics aside, Carmen comes off as a heartless jerk and a scold while Edison is a conniving twerp that creates some deus-ex-machina invention for whatever problem that's ripped from the headlines. It boggles my mind why their artists couldn't have just made them adults.

Though I must give "Prickly City" some credit. Despite it's shortcomings as a strip, it's probably the best conservative political strip in the papers. It has story arcs, the occasional non-political strip, and sometimes takes shots at its own side (unlike that certain strip with a duck). However there is still room for much, much more improvement.

P.S. Did I draw James Lipton okay? Could you tell that was him?

~moodyblues Jul 14, 2010

Spot on observation! Comic artists, if your character is a child, let him/her act like a child.

Oh, and stop ripping off Calvin and Hobbes. (I'm looking at you, Non-Sequitur.)

*jhaumann Jul 15, 2010

I know, that's how I feel too! Edison Lee is also guilty of ripping off Calvin and Hobbes whenever the title character approaches the father with some crazy poll or cockamamie scheme. That strip and Non-Sequitur are too bogged down in political preachiness and lack whimsy and charm to ever match Calvin and Hobbes.

~Yaoi-Huntress-Earth Jul 12, 2010 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

That is brilliant. It's odd how many political strips these days are either far right or far left and more concerned with preaching than entertaining.

~nothingsp Jul 12, 2010

WORD. I am getting so tired of being lectured by stuff like this...

~Yaoi-Huntress-Earth Jul 12, 2010 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

While I enjoy the Boondocks cartoon and they at least let one of Huey's lectures backfire on him and some fun moments to ballance it. It's stuff like this that I stopped watching South Park (at least one of the reasons.)

~nothingsp Jul 12, 2010

Yeah, Boondocks at least tried for some nuance and variety of material and tone. Edison Lee is all-preaching, all-the-time.

~Yaoi-Huntress-Earth Jul 12, 2010 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

Never read Edison Lee. As for Boondocks, were some things like Huey screwing with Jasmine's head with his news stories (Cookie Monster has an eating disorder), Jenny using the pull-the-football-away trick on Riley, Riley trying to change the streetsign names to something more ghetto and the first apperance of Uncle Ruckus as a department store santa that I really enjoy. Also the creator is a pretty nice guy (he did a signing and roundtable discussion at the college I went to.)

~nothingsp Jul 12, 2010

Heh, neat

~Yaoi-Huntress-Earth Jul 12, 2010 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

It was fun. One of the most amusing parts was when we was debating with a guy who was on the opposite side of the specturm (about the origins of what lead to the Iraq War) and he was taking it well and sorta convinced the guy. For giggles, Aaron wrote in the book he signed for the guy, "It's ok, you've been lied to." That line where he mentioned that black people are use to being lied to by society and those in power.

*jhaumann Jul 12, 2010

I know, right? What happened to making the comics entertaining and the characters likable or at least sympathetic? Another thing that bugs me about Carmen and Edison Lee is that not only do they act like adults, they speak like them too. I don't necessarily mean like the expanded vocabulary precocious kids can have, but I mean the things they talk about. Do you know any kids that talk incessantly about the bank bailouts (Edison Lee) or repeat the "nattering nabobs of negativity" quote William Safire penned for Spiro Agnew over 40 years ago (Prickly City)?

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