Re: Crosswords. Depending on the show, I knit, although that doesn't always go well if I get wrapped up in what I'm watching. ;)
Re: William Stieg, I keep forgetting that he did more than the children's books I loved as a kid. This collection sounds like all kinds of wonderful, and a bit surprising--like you, I assumed that the '50s were a time of repressed buttoned-downness.
Re: Cartoons. I think people tend to overlook them because of their single-panel nature; the joke only has one chance to work and there's none of the story build-up that characterizes comics. To a layreader, everything seems to happen at once: the drawing, the joke, laughing or not. What most people don't consider is how difficult it is to elicit that laughter in that "short" a space and time. I admit that I love cartoonists whose work extends beyond the single panel--Roz Chast I love, because her work is so well-observed and keeps going for me even beyond the panel. Charles Addams is the same way, primarily because his work is so iconic.
And, yes, building a position of "X is better because Y is not as good" is pretty darn stupid, IMHO. And yet I've seen people base their entire careers/lives on it! Scary.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2008-02-22 08:00 pm (UTC)Re: William Stieg, I keep forgetting that he did more than the children's books I loved as a kid. This collection sounds like all kinds of wonderful, and a bit surprising--like you, I assumed that the '50s were a time of repressed buttoned-downness.
Re: Cartoons. I think people tend to overlook them because of their single-panel nature; the joke only has one chance to work and there's none of the story build-up that characterizes comics. To a layreader, everything seems to happen at once: the drawing, the joke, laughing or not. What most people don't consider is how difficult it is to elicit that laughter in that "short" a space and time. I admit that I love cartoonists whose work extends beyond the single panel--Roz Chast I love, because her work is so well-observed and keeps going for me even beyond the panel. Charles Addams is the same way, primarily because his work is so iconic.
And, yes, building a position of "X is better because Y is not as good" is pretty darn stupid, IMHO. And yet I've seen people base their entire careers/lives on it! Scary.