The L.A. Times announced this morning that starting Monday, it will begin putting Mallard Fillmore on its comics pages.
I'm not upset over it by any stretch of the imagination. The strip, which is overtly political and chronically conservative, has every right to be there. The Seattle P-I and SanFran Chronicle have carried it since day one, and it hasn't made any Richter-scale shift in their political landscapes.
I'll even go so far as to say that its creator, Bruce Tinsley, is quite a skilled craftsman - his caricatures are quite good. In fact, the lead character is a perfect clone of Marvel Comics' original Howard the Duck.
It will demonstrate to Los Angeles, however, the golden rule that liberals are much funnier than conservatives. We'd place the humor intensity of Mallard Fillmore somewhere between Fred Bassett and The Family Circus. I guess cons can say the same for Doonesbury, but we say screw 'em.
I do find it comforting that in the story in the Times (which they didn't put online for some reason), Tinsley's wife is a bit of a lefty and refuses to talk politics with him. Knowing that is going on behind the scenes makes it easier on the digestive system.
