The Cartoon & Poem Supplement
The Cartoon & Poem Supplement
"If that’s a pack of foxhounds"
Paid-exclusive this week.
Poems:
“Sisters” by Lee Upton: An anxiety poem about afterlives and doing right by the dead, this didn’t activate for me at all. It’s an almost banal treatment of loss; the language is elegant enough, but all the garment-rending feels rehearsed – as though the poem was over-edited long past the point in which the emotion was felt. The sister as the now-gone audience for a confession (or a confessional poem) suggests that the reader is a paltry substitute – but if you don’t want me here, why are you talking to me?
“Prayer” by Larry Levis: A much broader and more swerving portrait of loss, parental instead of sororal. Programming these two together renders them variations on a theme in ways that don’t help either. But this is potent stuff, in Levis’ usual sun-dried style. Here the audience is more than not dismissed, they’re sanctified; the capitalized You is literally God (and who doesn’t want to be, for thirty-six lines?) and the heartbreak of impermanence, set off by the blinding permanence of vision, of contrast, is a question worth asking him. It’s a tough time for a California poem about loss, even if this Valley isn’t the one that’s burning. Stay safe out there, in these omnipresent impossible conditions.
Cartoons:
Here's where to find the cartoons, with credits, in order.
Cover: Blitt, at times, has a way of finding the least compelling slant.
Pg. 9: The prehistoric hamster breaking the fourth wall kinda makes this.
Pg. 14: This week in “wouldn’t laugh if someone said this to me in real life.”
Pg. 17: Chef’s hat is an overstep but it’s a good drawing.
Pg. 22: Pretty expected but “cozy love nest” is fun.
Pg. 24: Eesh, exceedingly kids-say-the-darnedest-things-y.
Pg. 28: Mermaids deserve top surgery.
Pg. 34: Deliberately forced is still forced.
Pg. 35: Far too stand-up-comedy-ish for my taste.
Pg. 36: I guess roaches aren’t as cute but ants feel very suburban for this magazine.
Pg. 39: Unbelievably overdetermined, which is too bad because Hamilton draws a great king.
Pg. 43: More elegant than funny, but in a weak batch my captionless bias remains undefeated. Best of the Week.
Pg. 44: Surely the joke is “Watch me pull an argument out of my hat!”
Pg. 46: Genuinely can’t tell what the joke’s supposed to be, or if there’s even a joke, in the first three panels. The sports wordplay is so underworked it’s almost offensive. Fourth panel is okay.
Pg. 50: Is the issue really that those symbols are tiny, or just that they’re confusing and unintuitive?
Pg. 51: Putting a moratorium on email spam jokes. Do you not have a filter?
Pg. 54: More whimsical than funny, but not too bad.
Pg. 55: Feels like Dai came up with the first idea and tried to turn it into a theme. Not that inspired.
Pg. 58: MPJ stands for Must Practice Jumping.
83 Years Ago Today
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