The Cartoon & Poem Supplement
The Cartoon & Poem Supplement
"But you can eat as much as you want"
Poems:
“Outage” by Raven Leilani: Interesting to see Leilani, who is best known for her fiction, branching out. This is both deeply felt and also pretty sappy, and that combination is, at least, compelling at first – having “expected weather” shades in the speaker as a character. But the ending doesn’t pay much off, it gets caught up in obvious double meanings and repetitions. Using the word “awe” to speak of awe is a generally unpoetic gesture.
“I Have No Word in English For” by Sandra Cisneros: Not trying to be anything other than a mixed bag of moments, turned into a real poem only by its ending, which is just barely more biting than cutesy (“for” instead of “to” makes it work.) None of the moments are designed to stand on their own, exactly; those that try hardest fall flattest. (Surely “Divina Providencia” is easy to translate, and speaking of “spiritual interventions” doesn’t actually illuminate anything; that “un inocente” with “mind askew” is “blameless” feels troublesome – almost slur-like – in ways Cisneros isn’t fully looking at.) Well-sequenced, with some spark. But only precisely equal to the sum of its parts.
Cartoons:
Here's where to find the cartoons, with credits, in order.
Cover: A charming painting (if oddly 2003 – the chair, the fit, the wall color) saddled with a title that already feels wildly out of date, not to mention corny. Good thing it’s easily ignored.
Pg. 10: This is just the end of Goodfellas in cartoon form.
Pg. 15: Onion did it.
Pg. 16: There is, apparently, such a thing as too Chastian.
Pg. 24: Great visual, great caption… lose the cocked eyebrow on the pirate and this is perfect.
Pg. 32: Ought to be “the power to go home”, since the whole joke is in the similarity between Dorothy’s desires and those of the average partygoer.
Pg. 35: Only slightly zany and only slightly overwrought, but that’s a bad combo.
Pg. 42: Isn’t the whole thing that they aren’t adding amenities – if anything, are reducing amenities – and are mostly just trying to get people to come back through threat and passive aggression?
Pg. 58: Best to avoid repeating words in the cartoon and the caption, especially when that word is the punchline.
Pg. 61: Perfect example of a silly joke elevated by an elegant drawing with no visible face on the speaker. We read the cow’s line whichever way is funniest to us.
Pg. 63: Jesus Christ! What is this, The Rejection Collection?
Pg. 66: Really interesting to see Flake, who’s usually so wordy, with a captionless cartoon. A good effort, too!
Pg. 70: Taps into the latent psychopathy undergirding Barney without directly being about said psychopathy.
Pg. 80: Funny and genuinely theologically interesting as it speaks directly to what’s unspoken regarding Eve’s choice. Best of the Week.
Pg. 84: They could print this on the back cover of Bullshit Jobs.
9 Years Ago Today
yes no