Criticizing fellow cartoonists

This is a touchy subject. Some cartoonists are very outspoken about whose work they don't respect. Bill Griffith, for example, who draws the comic strip "Zippy", has said he hates Dilbert, that it isn't funny at all. Whenever I think about criticizing anyone else's work, though, I always think, "What if I'm at some gathering and I meet the person whose work I've trashed?" How do you say hi to that person without feeling awkward? And what if they've read what you said and bring it up?

Now, I don't worry about retaliation. If I say something bad about your work and you come back with a similar criticism, it may be just retribution, or you may have never liked my stuff anyway and just decided to speak up because I did. It might hurt, but it doesn't make my opinion of what I do any different. I may even take some of the criticism to heart and try to make improvements. But I'm concerned about turning off readers who like QlownTown but may decide they don't like it if they don't like my opinions. I'm wussy that way.

Having said all that, I do confess a personal dislike for cutesy cartoons that don't really have a strong punchline. Family Circus often features cute jokes that don't make me laugh. I know I do the occasional clunker myself, but an abundance of unfunny comics makes me wish they'd work harder. Polls evidently show that that's one of the most popular strips, so what can I say? But cute without clever just seems like a greeting card. Likewise, "Rose is Rose" is one of the best-drawn strips out there and so I read it every day, but it traffics in a sweet, cute style of humor when I think the brilliant artwork deserves smarter stuff. Again, popularity 1, me 0...ah, what do I know?

There are also a couple of pet strips I could name that never make me laugh, yet they've been around for years. I recently decided that I do like Garfield, however. I've read a lot of criticism about how it's the same five or six gags all the time, but I still laugh out loud occasionally. In today's strip, Odie starts to drown in his own drool, a surrealistic sight that could only make sense in a cartoon.

And I think Dilbert is always funny, almost always very funny, and deserves the popularity it enjoys. So my own tastes do sometimes mesh with the prevailing view.

I hope that when I'm at the Reuben awards (the comics industry "Academy Awards") someday, either accepting an award or wishing I'd at least been nominated and wondering how I even got invited, that anyone I've mentioned will forgive me, shake my hand, and say something nicer than "Congratulations. But just so you know, your stuff makes me barf."