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Eric: A snark where Eric abuses dancing bear metaphors.
(From On the Playground. Click on the thumbnail for full sized matters of perspective!)
There is an old saying. It's one I got from Heinlein, but it predates him of course. "It doesn't matter if the bear dances well or not, it's that he dances at all." And there's a degree to which it's true. If you have a bear and he's dancing, that's pretty impressive any way you look at it.
But what if the bear actually dances well? Can you set aside the fact that he's a dancing bear, and judge the dance on its own merits? Does the fact that he's a bear make it all the more remarkable and cool? Or does the opposite happen -- does his bearish nature prevent the bear's dance from being recognized as a dance.
That runs through my head as I read through On the Playground. On the Playground is a strip about third graders, that is surprisingly (and refreshingly) uncluttered by either vulgarity or schmaltz. All too often, when we see comic strips set in the third grade, these days, the kids are either twee and sweet and present a bucolic view of childhood born entirely of our own adult yearnings for a childhood like we see in Hallmark Cards, forgetting that the childhood itself was often none too fun... or it's an exercise in scatological humor.
Sometimes, both of the above can be funny, mind, but there's something refreshing about a comic strip that depicts children as self centered without being sociopathic. On the Playground pulls this off. The humor is sophisticated, the kids aren't even slightly twee, but the strip is also... well, about children. This is a hard set to pull off. Also, the execution is excellent in the individual strips, and it brings the funny. There is an element of surrealistic humor, some of the cruelty you need to have to be really funny, a sense of characterization that has no real bad guys (you feel truly badly for the teachers in this strip -- they really are trying), and a dash of pure anarchy for good measure. All good things for a comic strip.
Which is evident by the fact that the strip actually gets the front page of the Sunday comics section of the Lowell Sun. There's a lot of Keenspace comic strips out there, but this is one of the few that can boast a newspaper gig that puts it on the front page of a sunday comics section that goes into fifty thousand homes. Heck, this is one of the few webcomics that can boast that.
So, by any definition Alan Anderson's strip is worth your time. It's a good, solid gag-a-day strip. It brings the Funny without being sentimental or scatological. It's smart and well executed.
The thing is... Alan Anderson is a dancing bear. He's thirteen. In fact, he just turned thirteen on Thursday. (And happy birthday, Alan.)
David Letterman, when talking to prodigies of any kind, loves to say "when I was your age, I had a paper route," and that's coming to mind right now. I was a writer at thirteen, but I wasn't a very good one. I know. I still have stories from back then. I sure as heck didn't have a newspaper circulation.
The question is... does the fact that Anderson is thirteen -- and got his newspaper gig and a 60+ strip archive when he was twelve -- distract from the fact that On the Playground is an honest to goodness good comic strip, and would be if Anderson was twenty four and hanging out in coffee shops while wearing berets?
I'll tell you this much -- when Anderson is twenty-four, assuming he sticks with cartooning (and there's no reason he shouldn't), he'll have the potential to be one of that generation's best cartoonists. And that's a hopeful thing any way you slice it. But today, with him at thirteen, he's a good cartoonist who knows how to tell a good joke in four panels, writing a comic that's worth your time.
Bear or not, this is some good dancing. Check it out.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at May 14, 2005 1:01 PM
Comments
Comment from: siwangmu posted at May 14, 2005 2:57 PM
Strip one is a philosophy joke. Strip five is about Bloom County. Strip 6 explaines the concept of breaking the fourth wall, and strip seven is ridiculously insightful.
What the hell?
Are you absolutely, positively sure he's thirteen?
Comment from: Haver posted at May 14, 2005 3:23 PM
I've spoke with him before. Definitely 13.
Comment from: Steve Mollmann posted at May 14, 2005 3:48 PM
I'm trapped in some kind of timeloop! Hitting back on this page takes me to Websnarkian Holiday... and hitting back there takes me here again! Has the rest of Websnark been destroyed? Is this all there is?
Comment from: Xaviar Xerexes posted at May 14, 2005 4:14 PM
Ha! I posted when he was 12!
http://comixpedia.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2204
Johnny-come-lately's. When he was 12 he was cool. Now that he's 13, he's all like mainstream and stuff... :)
Good snark today Eric.
Comment from: miyaa posted at May 14, 2005 5:05 PM
When I read about prodigies and other such plush kids (child actors, natch), I always question about how the parents handle such "gifted" children. I grew up as a "gifted kid" and let me tell you, there are times when I wished I was just a dumb average kid. At least my parents had the foresight to send me through school normally instead of having me go to college at age 10.
So, does he get a biscuit?
Comment from: Moe Lane posted at May 14, 2005 5:26 PM
That's a 13 year old?
Comment from: RoboYuji posted at May 14, 2005 6:01 PM
Well, it LOOKS like it was done by a thirteen year old, though he's probably further along than half the webcomic "artists" out there.
As for the other stuff, I was into Bloom County when I was 13, and read it through all the books, since my newspaper didn't carry it. Just means he's a SMART 13 year old!
Comment from: RoboYuji posted at May 14, 2005 6:02 PM
Ha ha, I didn't really intead for that first part to sound so mean . . . well, except for the second half of it . . .
Comment from: RoboYuji posted at May 14, 2005 6:21 PM
Ha ha, I didn't really intead for that first part to sound so mean . . . well, except for the second half of it . . .
Comment from: RoboYuji posted at May 14, 2005 6:22 PM
I also didn't intend to post that twice. Or spell "intend" wrong.
Comment from: kirabug posted at May 14, 2005 11:04 PM
what does "twee" mean?
Comment from: Merus posted at May 15, 2005 12:32 AM
According to dictionary.com, overly nice. It's that frame of mind kids in comic strips tend to inhabit, where they're innocent and cute and entirely unrealistic.
Comment from: Merus posted at May 15, 2005 12:48 AM
miyaa: Actually, it depends a lot on the parents how the kids turn out. For the most part, there's no harm in getting the gifted kids to achieve their potential so long as they have a balanced existance. The important thing, though, is to treat the kid like a kid first and a prodigy second, because otherwise parents make the mistake of treating them like small adults.
It's actually extraordinarily common that the smart kid who used to always do well in school ends up crashing and burning in adulthood, because they don't get proper parenting.
Comment from: Brian posted at May 15, 2005 2:06 AM
Not to go off-topic or anything, but...okay, I'm going off-topic.
I'm oddly gratified that someone else didn't know what "twee" was. See, in the last few weeks, I've been seeing it crop up here, in a Roger Ebert review, and on several other sites...and to the best of my knowledge, I had never seen the word before mid-April. Yet it was being tossed around like it was the most obvious thing.
And I was flashing back to that 1980s "Twilight Zone" where one day Robert Klein finds out that lunch is not called "lunch" but is actually called "dinosaur", and the word "lunch" means a sort of magenta color, and words keep changing until he wakes up one day and OH MY GOD THE ENTIRE LANGUAGE HAS CHANGED and he can't understand his wife or his kids and his NAME is different and...and...
So, yeah, I'm glad someone else didn't recognize "twee".
Brian
Comment from: Merus posted at May 15, 2005 8:47 AM
I know Erik doesn't mind the occasional swearword, but geez, Brian.
Comment from: Brian posted at May 15, 2005 1:52 PM
Sorry about that -- I was going for "over-the-top hysterics" but clearly wandered smack-dab into "taking the Lord's name in vain" territory, which I actually rarely (if ever) do in my day-to-day talking. And saying "twee" multiple times kind of sounds filthy, too -- unless it's a toddler in a park saying "Wook at aww da twees, Mommy!", in which case it's unbearably precious.
But anyway...there was a topic!
I, too, was struck by the Bloom County riff in strip 5 -- and I'm wondering now if Mr. Anderson has ever even SEEN one of the early Macintoshes that the Banana Jr. was based on. (The Banana Jr.-ish "helper" in Microsoft Word, mentioned on this site before, doesn't count.)
I should note that, while Mr. Anderson is young, I'm still going to call him "Mr. Anderson" partly out of respect, and partly because I've seen "The Matrix" too many times.
Brian
Comment from: Shaenon posted at May 15, 2005 3:31 PM
The original analogy, incidentally, is from Boswell's *Life of Johnson*. Hearing about a female Quaker preacher, Johnson said "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."
Moral: Samuel Johnson was an asshole.
Comment from: Trevor Barrie posted at May 15, 2005 7:50 PM
I feel your pain on the "twee" thing, Brian. I had a similar experience a couple of months back when it seemed everybody just randomly decided all at once to pretend that "barista" was a word.
Comment from: Eric Burns posted at May 15, 2005 7:57 PM
I had a similar experience a couple of months back when it seemed everybody just randomly decided all at once to pretend that "barista" was a word.
A couple of... months?
I was taught 'Barista' and its uses back in '94. Doesn't there reach a point when it actually is considered a word? ;)
Comment from: gwalla posted at May 15, 2005 10:48 PM
I didn't discover "barista" until Alison became one in Avalon. I'd simply never heard the word before.
On the other hand, I've known (and used) "twee" since forever. Probably because it's common in British English and my mom is a serious anglophile.
Comment from: Bo Lindbergh posted at May 16, 2005 12:42 AM
What a strigid conversation.
Comment from: Eric Burns posted at May 16, 2005 1:05 AM
It's a perfectly cromulent usage.
Comment from: Trevor Barrie posted at May 16, 2005 2:50 AM
A couple of... months?
I was taught 'Barista' and its uses back in '94.
Yes, well, you would say that. A big part of the irritation factor concerning the pseudo-word's appearance out of nowhere a couple of months ago is the way everybody just nonchalantly started pretending that it was a slang term that had been in common usage for some time.
But I'm on to you.
Comment from: siwangmu posted at May 16, 2005 12:50 PM
Okay, I don't want to get into anything bad here, but I can't help my curiosity. Is "Oh My God" the profanity to which you were referring, Merus? Is that offensive to say? I apologize if this is insensitive, I'm from California and, being ultra-super-secularized, we tended to all say Oh my God even as kids.
Please enlighten!
Comment from: jpcardier posted at May 16, 2005 1:45 PM
From Shaenon (see "Narbonic"):
"Moral: Samuel Johnson was an asshole."
Yeah, and Boswell was a suckup. And when you have a suckup sucking up to an asshole... Well it isn't pretty.
Was it just me that reads Boswell's account of the "great Johnson" and inwardly cringes?
Comment from: Fabian posted at May 16, 2005 3:24 PM
siwangmu: I can't speak for Merus, but I took his comment as a rather clever joke about Brian's concerns regarding words suddenly changing their meaning ...
Comment from: Brian posted at May 16, 2005 4:06 PM
I didn't take it that way at all, but now that you've said that, I sure do hope that's what it was. I mean, seriously, I never ever get busted for inappropriate language, so this was a new experience for me, and I honestly meant it when I apologized for offending.
But, yeah, that would put a new spin on everything: "I mean, 'magenta'? There are CHILDREN here!"
(Another topic-derailing aside: For 9 or 10 magical issues, Peter Bagge and Gilbert Hernandez collaborated on the all-ages comic book, "Yeah!", the story of an all-girl rock band from Earth that was the most popular group in the galaxy, but could never hit the big time at home. In one of the letters columns, someone wrote that his favorite member of Yeah! was Woo-Woo, and he referred to her as "zaftig." The editor's response, of course, was "Hey, this is a family comic!" Good times.)
Brian
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