My plan for today's post was to share all the comic strips I could find poking fun at Black Friday. Retail and Frazz are pretty much all I found. There were a few strips that did some day-after-Thanksgiving gags -- eating too much, not having leftovers, having nothing but leftovers, etc. -- but pretty much nothing surrounding Black Friday besides these two. Admittedly, I gave up after a while, so there may well be more out there, but whether there's one or two more is besides the point. The point is that almost no one seems to be able to find humor in Black Friday.
Which strikes me as curious. Every year, we watch Aunt Barbara go through the newspaper ads after Thanksgiving dinner, strategizing the best route to score all the deals before her neighbor. Every year, we hear about two little old ladies acting like mafia thugs over a fleece blanket that's been marked off 20%. Every year, we see news reports about people who camped out in a freezing cold outside a Best Buy overnight, so they could be the first person to buy the latest Call of Duty game for ten dollars cheaper than it is online. Every year, we hear about a minor road rage incident in the Kohl's parking lot. There is TONS of comedy potential here, and people who write comedy for a living are flatly ignoring it.
I can only think of two explanations offhand. First might be that cartoonists think it might be too regional. The name "Black Friday" was indeed regional when it was introduced, so I could maybe buy into that explanation for older cartoonists who've been doing their strips since the early 1970s, but people from Jim Davis onward should be pretty aware of the idea as a national thing.
The other idea I can thing of is that all these cartoonists know at least a couple people who take Black Friday deadly seriously, and take great offense even when the creator makes a slight, offhand comment about it. The assumption might be that if you get a strong enough negative reaction to a casual comment, something printed up in the newspaper is bound to draw more ire. And while many would think stirring the pot in this way is a good thing, newspaper cartoonists have exactly been known for being edgy for at least a few decades now.
I don't know about that either, though. Seems to me I've seen plenty of gags around religion, and that's usually taken pretty seriously by followers. Is it possible that Americans are more committed to shopping than to reading their Bibles? As much as Bible-thumpers scare me, I'd be almost more scared of anyone that committed to wanton consumerism.
I don't know, though. I've only been mulling this around for today, and haven't come up with any better answers. Anyone else have any ideas?
Although the Hulk was initally conceived as a variation on the Jekyll and Hyde story, the character fairly quickly morphed from an id-driven brute to the green rage-monster most people are familiar with. I think the original concept didn't quite catch on (recall that The Hulk was originally cancelled after six issues) because people had trouble connecting with the idea. Everyone has some level of super-ego that keep their impulses in check. But the idea of getting so angry that you just lash out, I think that's more relatable. You might not actually be able to, and your super-ego might be strong enough to keep that in check, but the desire is still there.
Much of what writers have done with the Hulk, then, is to show the struggle Bruce Banner has keeping from getting angry. The classic line from the TV show hits right on this point: "Mr. McGee, don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
But it was another line of spoken dialogue that upset a number of fans. "That's my secret, Cap. I'm always angry."
That implies Banner is always in control of when/where the Hulk shows up. That's not the character as we've seen in the past. That's not the unmitigated unleashing of all your anger and frustration with a defeaning, unintelligble roar.
I was chatting with one of my cousins-in-law a couple months back. He was talking about how he was trying to mentor a younger guy in his early 20s, and they got into a disagreement about something. I forget the specifics, but it amounted to my cousin saying that you can't lose your shit at the drop of a hat or else you'd wind up in prison or shot. This guy responded that there was a lot of things that made him angry. To which my cousin responded that he got angry too. He was angry at the phone company for screwing up his bill. He was angry at the stupid crap some of his co-workers do. He was angry at the guy who cut him off in traffic. He was angry at his local politicians for blocking a ballot measure that his city sorely needed to pass. He was angry at what's been happening in Ferguson. He was angry that the people of Ferguson needed to get tips from activists in Palestinie and Egypt for dealing with out-of-control law enforcement. He was angry that we live in a culture that repeatedly devalues the lives of kids like Trayvon Martin. He was angry that he has to deal racism every single day.
But he can't let that out all the time. He wouldn't be able to hold a job or a secure place to live. It's not that he can't react to all that; he just reacts in a way that's rationable and reasonable. Now, if he were to get into a situation where his life was literally be threatened, that's when it'd be okay to lose your shit. If some redneck picks a fight with him in a bar. If a mugger tries to steal his wallet. You can believe he would defend himself with every bit of adreline he's saved up from the bad day at the office to Ferguson to everything else. That's when and where it'd be okay to use his anger and direct it appropriately.
"That's my secret, Cap. I'm always angry." Bruce Banner said it. Every Black person in America felt it.
If you're a regular reader of this blog, you're probably at least passingly familiar with Dr. Fredric Wertham, the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency hearings, and the birth of the Comics Code. There are any number of books and videos out covering the subject any more, from David Hajdu's hefty book The Ten-Cent Plague to Rober A. Emmons' recent documentary Diagram for Delinquents. Or maybe you've attended a convention and heard Charles Brownstein talk about it in regards to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, or Carol Tilley speak specifically to her research in Wertham's papers. There's plenty of information out there covering all aspects of the anti-comics sentiment that grew through the late 1940s and early 1950s.
But here's the weird thing that I think most Americans don't know: the crusade against comics wasn't just in the U.S. Let me pull out some book excerpts...
From John Bell's book on Canadian comics history, Invaders from the North...In 1949 the crime-comics campaign gained substantial momentum as community groups across the country lobbied for passage of an anti-cromics law that had been drafted the year before by E. Davie Fulton. Among those who supported a legislative response to the crime-comics problem was Prime Minister Mackenzie King...
From Anne Rubenstein's history of censorship in Mexican comics, Bad Language, Naked Ladies, & Other Threats to the Nation...Conservative frustration with las historietas reappeared in public discourse not long after a new president, Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, took office in 1952... Despite the governmental origin of this second movement against comic books, Catholic leaders sometimes spoke as if the government--rather than producers or consumers--was responsible for objectionable print media.
From Frederik Schodt's Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics...In the late 1940s the American Occupation authorities took a dim view of all rhetoric and activities that seemed tied to the disasterous wartime mentality. In the comics this meant replacing the old system of censorship by a new one...
And, lastly, from Paul Gravett's Great British Comics...In response to his concerns that a minority of American comics available as imports or British reprints were exposing children to gore and sadism, [clergyman Marcus] Morris teamed up with [Frank] Hampson to offer a thoroughly wholesome alternative [in 1950].
Now, all of these countries had obviously different approaches towards "cleaning up" comics and had varying degrees of severity. But what I find striking is that all of these countries were essentially reacting to the end of World War II, despite their level of involvement. And curiously, the countries that had the strictest regulations put in place, in the name of saving the children, were the countries whose children saw the fewest effects of war. Britain had the crap bombed out of it, and we mostly just a preacher offering up a less fight-y option. Whereas Canada and the United States, separated from the primary conflict by the Atlantic Ocean, put up the greatest stink about comics' impact on children, and had the most legal actions. America was, in fact, so stringent, as noted by the quote above, they even instituted new rules for Japanese comics!
As I said, much has been written about the issues here in the States, and various authors have touched on similar issues around the globe, but I'd be curious to see a comprehensive summary of what EVERYbody was doing and how their reactions differed due to their cultural backgrounds and/or their involvement in the war. What happened in France? Australia? Italy? India? How did this seemingly world-wide comics backlash manifest elsewhere?
Being the week of Thanksgiving here in the U.S., it seems mandatory for any discussion on business to be about Black Friday. The phrase, as it pertains to shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, originated in the mid-1950s where traffic got very bad and traffic cops and bus drivers began using "Black Friday" to connote the horrible experiences they had. The "black" was more a reference to mourning and depression than anything else.
Merchants originally tried renaming the days after Thanksgiving as "Big Friday" and "Big Saturday" but had little success. It wasn't until the early 1980s that they began to co-opt the phrase to suggest the "black" referred to the accounting practice of using black ink for positive revenues. (As opposed to red ink for negative ones.) Fortunately (from the merchants' perspective) the phrase hadn't become really nationalized yet; a 1985 article in The Philadelphia Inquirer noted that it hadn't been picked up yet in Cincinnati or Los Angeles. I believe it was around this time, as well, that business people began taking note of the fact that Toys R Us made a substantial portion of their yearly profits in December, further emphasizing the retail focus of Black Friday instead of the traffic congestion.
So while the basic concept behind Black Friday has been around for over half a century, it's really only been known as Black Friday for the most recent generation.
Which, as many of you will note, is the same generation who grew up with comic books being essentially only available in specialty shops fed by comics' direct market system.
What that means is that for nearly the entirety of the existence of dedicated comics retailer shops, people have not been shopping there on the biggest shopping day of the year. They're looking for sales and bargains, and are hitting the stores where those deals are advertised. Your Targets, Walmarts, Kmarts, etc. In the past few years, there's been a bit more support for shopping at local businesses on Black Friday, and I know I've seen some comics retailers promote this angle. Generally in more recent years than we've had "Cyber Monday" as a thing.
Where I'm going with all this is that the comics retail landscape has changed dramatically in the past several years. There was a radical shift when the direct market first came about, but things remained relatively stable afterwards. There was a slow trickling away from the newsstand model, but not so much as anyone really cared to worry about. But the past few years have seen things disrupted by not only digital sales generally, but some near-seizmic shifts in the overall shopping arena.
How a retailer might expect to survive in that kind of a market without keeping abreast of how things are changing is beyond me. And yet I still continue to see retailer after retailer just doing the same ol' thing they've always done. With no real sales or promotions, no noticeable attempts to lure in customers on Black Friday, nothing they might not do on any other given Friday. Not all comics retailers are like this, of course, but I'm just continually floored to see people -- even the ones who don't seem to have business background and/or sense -- miss out on huge shifts like we've seen in recent years.
Yesterday, I noted the recent ending of Charlos Gary's Cafe con Leche. That was mostly on the socio-racial implications of the ending of a strip featuring a mixed race couple. Today I'd like to take a few moments to look at the business end of things.
First off, let's make sure everyone's aware that Gary is not out of work. Back in September, he was hired by Charles Schwab as their Senior Director for Visual Communications.
Though he was understandably excited about the new gig, he that Cafe con Leche was coming to end not much later, if he didn't already know when he took the Schwab job. Note the dates on these two Tweets from him...
(That second Tweet translates as "I feel very sad today because my comic is ending" in case you're wondering.)
Gary's next Tweets are some minor clarifications and several "thanks for your support" messages. But the interesting one comes a couple weeks after the last strip was published.
That it might come back "albeit at another syndicate" points to the idea that Creators Syndicate is no longer willing to support the strip. It does not seem to be an issue bewteen Universal and Gary himself, as they're continuing to syndicate Gary's other strip, Working It Out. (Although it should be noted that that strip has been in reruns since April 2012.) According to Wikipedia, Working It Out was only in 50 papers as of 2004. That's a seriously dated number, I realize, but I have to believe that's higher than what Gary was getting with Cafe con Leche. He noted on his blog several years ago that newspaper editors seemed leary of a comic featuring an interracial couple, and I'm led to believe that it's been an uphill battle since Day One.
So what it sounds like is that newspaper editors are uncomfortable testing the waters very much on the comics page. They'd rather have a more generic comic that they already ran four years earlier than a new one that deals with a nearly unique topic for comic strips. What choice would Creators Syndicate have but to drop the one that (one presumes) is costing them more money than it's earning?
But what does that say about the newspaper industry? By all accounts, newspaper circulation is in something of a death spiral and, rather than try anything new that might change things for good or ill, newspapers would rather go the "safe" route of keeping the status quo, which is all but guaranteed to end in oblivion.
And from a creator's perspective, why would you want to launch a new newspaper strip at this point? It's almost inevitably doomed to fail. At least launching it on the web provides some hope that it might be successful.
I don't think I've seen this come up in the regular comics press circles, and I'm a little irked that I missed it myself, but November 2 saw the last of Charlos Gary's newspaper strip, Cafe con Leche.The strip followed the domestic adventures of Trey and Maria, a mixed race couple who navigated the traditional male/female stereotypes in comics as well as some of the complexities of coming from very different cultural backgrounds.
That was one of the last syndicated newspaper strips that featured a mixed race couple. Doonesbury (which I believe had a Caucasian/Asian couple) has been in reruns for over a year. Cory Thomas pulled Watch Your Head (which included a Black/Caucasian couple) from syndication to restart it as a webcomic a couple months ago. Boondocks has been gone nearly a decade now. Norm Feuti's Retail is the only noteable one left, I believe. There are some minor characters in Jump Start that are a mixed couple, but that's all I can think of/find. Other strips like Wee Pals do feature a diverse cast, but none of them are shown to be in a mixed race relationship. And certainly none of these strips highlighted it as well as Cafe con Leche.
Why is that significant?
According to the 2010 census, over 15% of all new marriages in the United States are of mixed race couples. A 2008 Pew Research survey suggested fully one third of Americans claimed to have a family member in an interracial marriage. And yet the representation of that in newspaper strips is virtually non-existent.
This is the age-old racial discussion of wanting to see people like me. Black people don't want to see a newspaper page full of comic strips about white folks without recognizing themselves anywhere. Same with Asians, Latinos, etc. You've heard this before. Seeing fictional characters that represent them allows people to consider possibilities that they might not be seeing in their immediate and current life.
The same idea holds for interracial relationships. How many people simply don't even consider dating (much less marrying) someone of a different race just because it never occurred to them that it was an option? How many people think that they have to get married to someone who looks like them because that's what their parents did? It's about opening up people to possibilities beyond what they're presented everywhere else.
There's a motivational quote from Henry Ford that goes, "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right." And maybe that's a little overly optimistic (you can't breathe in a vaccum no matter how much you believe in your ability to do so) but people often accept what's presented to them as their only options, instead of asking if there's something else they hadn't considered. And it's people asking those kinds of questions that leads to progress.
I'll admit Cafe con Leche wasn't my favorite comic, but it was enjoyable. And while I don't personally know any Black men in a relationship with a Latina, I had a lot of respect for Gary for showing that as a possibility to so many people on a daily basis.
Retail and Frazz are pretty much all I found. There were a few strips that did some day-after-Thanksgiving gags -- eating too much, not having leftovers, having nothing but leftovers, etc. -- but pretty much nothing surrounding Black Friday besides these two. Admittedly, I gave up after a while, so there may well be more out there, but whether there's one or two more is besides the point. The point is that almost no one seems to be able to find humor in Black Friday.
