#6 - the best year ever (12-96) 



a kansas city tradition, since the 1920s, is the lightning of the country club plaza christmas lights. what is the country club plaza? the country's first mall, a sprawling outdoor thing that's chock-a-block with stores that charge too much, people that make too much money, and people that are tad too drunk. on thanksgiving evening, 275,000 cram themselves into the streets and watch the lights come on. really, it's a horrible mess, but if there were no people there, it would be beautiful. at midnight or so, on a monday night, when there's snow on the ground and not a soul to be seen, it's really beautiful. on a friday night, when all the beautiful people congregate--the thick-necked frattesque thugs are slapping each other on the back and scrawny little blonde bimbettes are tottering in their high heels and a whore-bib in 20 degree temperatures--it's insufferable.
 



 


this comic happens during the plaza light season, and i am afraid that it doesn't speak well of the wealthy. of course, there aren't a quarter of a million rich people in the streets during the lighting ceremony--though there's plenty of johnson countians, which is pretty damned close--but there feels like a quarter of a million limos, and there's plenty of horse-drawn carriages, which is pretty rough on the horses, as you might imagine. the quote about the republican congressman who said that 'middle-class' started at a quarter million is true . . . i just don't know who said it. this begins a certain anti-wealth theme that develops in sparrow's fall, and in my later media comments, which, along with my defense of bill clinton and my criticism of the 2000 election results, would appear to be linked to a certain anti-republican bias. you know, it's not just that. i dislike the wealthy no matter what their political orientation, and i take a certain pride in never having voted for a winning presidential candidate.

the comic: well, the wash is pretty bad, i'm afraid. it's terribly uneven; the dark places are torn on the surface, although you can't tell. the vertical lines in the wash are unintentional. (the problem with 90 pound cardstock is that it bleeds the wash right out of the pen nib, and in the time it takes you to reload, it soaks right into the paper and creates a visible border. quite the opposite problem you have with bristol board, one on whose surface your wash or ink pools and never dries. don't use 90 pound cardstock.) the lights are poorly drawn, and the fact that they are on top of a parking garage is barely understandable. the hand-lettered font is unusually bad, even for the period. the last panel is pretty poor: i got tired of drawing the plaza, and wasn't even sure how the particular view looked. i think that i was planning on going up and sketching from life, but either ran out of time or got lazy. as it is, ony a few streaks of wash indicate the layout of the central plaza, instead of a view from the halls building like their should have been.

ostensibly the christmas edition of sparrow's fall, it's meant to be depressing rather than merry. christopher still has no job, but is already looking beyond to a girlfriend. he really doesn't have much chance at either, and the animals point this fact out as soon as he opens his mouth. mortimer disappoints everyone, however, by admitting a fondness for marilyn manson.

the beautiful people, eh? and don't miss the crow in the last panel. remember the crows?






 

Posted: Fri - April 2, 2004 at 08:39 AM             |

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