Then again, if he's always drunk, this strip would start making a lot more sense (and still suck)

In a bout of shame-free shadenfreude, I delighted yesterday in reading that Bruce Tinsley (right), the creator of Mallard Fillmore, has been arrested twice for DUI. I dislike a lot of comic strips, but very few make me also seriously dislike the author -- and Mallard Fillmore’s one of them. It isn’t his politics; I’m also not fond of Doonsbury or Ted Rall’s weekly strip. Instead, it’s that Bruce doesn’t seem to understand that a comic strip must creatively package ideas instead of simply imposing them in raw form. His strips all follow the same format: Mallard sees something, there’s a semblance of comic set-up, and then the punchline is a politically conservative suckerpunch clothed as a vague, convoluted attempt at a joke.

And so, in honor of Bruce’s brush with the law, I present to you a high-concept table-turning: Here are some recent Mallard Fillmore strips, re-written as if Bruce was liberal and the target of Mallard’s ire.

(Originally published 12.4)

(Originally published 11.23)

Posted by Jason Feifer at December 13, 2006 12:35 AM