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1. tengberg says:

   September 26, 2006 at 6:11 pm

   but aren’t comedians supposed to laugh? aren’t comedians supposed to want to make people laugh? or is it just a job, a way to make money. is being a comedian a respectable occupation, ranking along with working for the government or any other way to bring home a paycheck?is it necessary to be insulting to make people laugh? what is humor? why do we need people to make us laugh?these are the questions that make me sleepy.

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2. myq says:

   September 26, 2006 at 10:23 pm

   Are you serious? (If you aren’t, and I’ve entirely misread your tone, please ignore the rest of this.)It’s not a real person having a knife thrown at them (that would be bad)it’s (as you pointed out) a dated stereotypical representation of a stand-up comic. (And maybe that representation itself deserves to be killed with a knife, no?)There’s an episode in the first season of “My Name is Earl” where Earl has knives thrown at him. I don’t think anyone is wondering why NBC would allow knives to be thrown at a guy who is clearly just trying to do good work and make the world better.(BECAUSE HE’S FICTIONAL.)It’s clearly a joke, and could even be interpreted as using the standard rule-of-three: throw a tomato, throw a pie, throw a (curveball) knife!How many jokes have modern comedians told where people are killed?Not to mention that the fact that it’s a political cartoon might indicate that the real-life parallel of the pictured knife is actually intended for the politician that the comedian is standing in for, no?Why would the comedian represent a politician and everything else in the image be interpreted literally?(In seriousness, was this a serious posting?)

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3. Brian McKim & Traci Skene says:

   September 26, 2006 at 11:34 pm

   Myq wrote:>> Are you serious?To which we reply: Yes.Further, Myq wrote:>> It’s not a real person having a knife thrown at them (that would be bad)it’s (as you pointed out) a dated stereotypical representation of a stand-up comic. (And maybe that representation itself deserves to be killed with a knife, no?)To which we reply:This is so flunk-the-junior-high-debate-class dumb that we’re nearly speechless. Of course it’s not a real person. It’s a representation of a real person. Let’s take it from there, shall we? Dated or not, it’s a <>comedian<> onstage at a place called the <>Comedy Spot<>. Stereotypical represetation or not, it’s still a comedian. Myq goes on with a totally pointless comparison to a scene in a network television sitcom, involving a <>knife thrower<>:There’s an episode in the first season of “My Name is Earl” where Earl has knives thrown at him. I don’t think anyone is wondering why NBC would allow knives to be thrown at a guy who is clearly just trying to do good work and make the world better.(BECAUSE HE’S FICTIONAL.)To which we reply:This is even dumber than the first point. It’s a <>knife thrower<> in the Earl episode! In the case of the cartoon, the deadly weapon is being tossed by <>an audience member<>. Focus, Myq: Context is everything. Knife throwers throw knives. Audience members sit in the venue, face forward, and DO NOT THROW SHIT. They especially do not throw sharp objects at the performers, as doing so will cause serious injury.For years, we’ve all sat idly by while comics were depicted as targets for rotten vegetables. We’ve even had modern comedy club patrons remark, “It must be really tough when people throw stuff at you.” They have this absurd impression because of old, dated representations in ancient popular culture artifacts. That they also might have this impression from depictions in the modern media, the modern pop culture, is inexcusable. We’ve seen a significant decline in such behavior. But it’s not gone. To see it revived like this is bad enough. To see it upped a notch or two with the addition of a knife is inexcusable. It’s alarming.People viewing the cartoon make no distinctions as to whether or not the comedian is of this era or not. The cartoonist gets to the associations (conscious and otherwise) as quickly as he can– the banner on the wall, the mike, the stool with the glass of water, etc.– the viewer sees (perceives) a comedian (with a cordless mike, no less!) and that the implied message is that it’s okay to throw stuff at him. Just as the symbolic imagery is persistent over decades, so, too is the violent message created with them.All we are asking for is an apology. And an end to the perpetuation of such unacceptable behavior on the editorial pages of major newspapers.

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4. myq says:

   September 27, 2006 at 4:22 am

   First, thank you for your prompt response, and for caring about standup comedy.Second, I believe it is ludicrous for you to demand an apology on behalf of ALL COMEDIANS, as every comedian I’ve spoken to thinks it ludicrous as well.In fact, I demand an apology for you demanding an apology on my behalf.(PS This demand for an apology on my part is just my attempt to be equally ludicrous, so no need to respond to it seriously and call it dumb, as you did to my intentionally over-the-top comparison to the “My Name is Earl” episode which I only made to demonstrate how illogical it would be to complain about the violence in that show just as I believe it is to complain about it in the cartoon.)Third, it seems you made a point to respond to everything that I wrote, with the exception of the last point, where I addressed the issue that the cartoon is not about violence towards comedians at all, but rather about violence towards the politician that the image of the comedian represents.Imagine a cartoon where people are harpooning a whale, and the whale has the word “freedom” on it, thus the cartoon is about people attacking freedom. It would be equally ridiculous to demand an apology on behalf of all whales, because whales have long been the victim of such attacks and don’t deserve harpooning (plus how many people are really harpooning whales anyway?). I’m a vegan who believes whales should not be harpooned, but I recognize that a cartoon in which that happens where something else entirely is intended as the message, has NOTHING to do with that at all.So again, the main point here is that the violence is not directed towards the comedian, but that which the comedian represents in the cartoon, which is something completely unrelated to comedians.Do other comedians disagree?You can have my portion of the apology.

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5. Brian McKim & Traci Skene says:

   September 27, 2006 at 1:12 pm

   The caption in the cartoon reads, “I haven’t seen an audience this tough since President Bush addressed the U.N.”The comic in the cartoon <>refers to the president<>. So, clearly he doesn’t “represent” anything. He is quite literal. He is a standup comic; he is meant to be a standup comic.Your above examples don’t apply.That your hostility is directed toward us is rather strange. (We assume you’re a comedian. If you’re not, then your hostility isn’t strange at all.)Feel free to write a letter to Copley or Gannett praising them for their fine cartoon.

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6. Mr Extreme says:

   September 27, 2006 at 3:03 pm

   Myq wrote(plus how many people are really harpooning whales anyway?).WATCH IT MYQ! THAT JOKE IS TAKEN!

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7. myq says:

   September 27, 2006 at 3:19 pm

   I don’t believe I directed any hostility towards you until you called what I said “dumb” and “dumber.”Before that, my first comment simply asked you if you were serious (sincerely, because it really was difficult for me to believe), and then stated my disagreement with you (perhaps strongly, because of my strong disagreement with your assessment), and finally asked essentially if you interpretation of the violence as towards the comedian might have been off the mark.I honestly didn’t intend any hostility in my first remarks. Disbelief? Yes. Disagreement? Yes. Hostility? Sincerely I don’t know what you read as hostile (as opposed to just being an opposing viewpoint), but whatever it is, I apologize.It seems to me, that your descriptions of my comments as “flunk-the-junior-high-debate-class dumb” and “dumber than the first point” are clearly more hostile (and intentionally so) than anything I said to prompt them.Especially in the context of what you’re trying to say and do here, that comedians deserve respect and should not be mistreated.I am a comedian. I harbor no hostility for you, and like I said in my last comment, I appreciate that you care for standup comedy and I thank you for it.As for the cartoon itself, I could care less about it. (Or couldn’t, if you prefer.) I don’t think it’s great (I didn’t even know the caption until now because you initially characterized it as irrelevant), I don’t think much about it at all, and I don’t believe it has as much impact as you seem to, in that you are demanding an apology on behalf of all comedians.I just wanted to point out that some comedians might (and do) see it as a joke, and as people that make jokes, we might more easily take it as one.Again, with all due respect, we disagree, but thank you for your love and support of comedy.Doing my best to demonstrate my lack of hostility,MyqPS I’m not dumb. You’re dumb.(A joke.)

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8. Timmy Mac says:

   September 27, 2006 at 3:33 pm

   Not to pigpile, but I don’t think Myq was hostile in his initial comment, and I think this is much ado about nothing.Obviously, every comic in the world hates it when someone says, “Hope I don’t have to throw a tomato at you,” because (a) it’s not 1930, and (b), it’s a douchey thing to say.But in nearly 15 years of comedy, I’ve never seen anyone ever actually throw a tomato at a comic, so obviously, people actually do realize that you shouldn’t throw tomatoes.I trust them to realize, therefore, that you also don’t throw knives or pies.I also love that Shecky stands up for comics and comedy, but you do have to acknowledge that bad comics and bad comedy do in fact exist, and that occasionally, criticism is warranted. Comics have, in fact, bombed, and bombed badly, and when a cartoonist wants to represent bombing, I hardly take it as a personal affront that he chooses a comic at a comedy club to do so.

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9. Brian McKim & Traci Skene says:

   September 27, 2006 at 4:44 pm

   We haven’t seen tomatoes thrown. But, on a few rare occasions over the past 25 years, we’ve seen other objects thrown. Throwing anything– <>anything<>— is unacceptable. It’s an insult. The knife takes it to a different level. It was completely unnecesary and overtly hostile. The pie, the tomato– both are iconic. But the knife takes it from a good-natured or quaint into vicious. (Not to mention historically inaccurate– we’re not aware of knives being tossed stageward in any past depictions.) On that much we should all be able to agree.

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10. Mr Extreme says:

    September 27, 2006 at 6:42 pm

    You would have to have very little faith in a show to bring tomatoes in the first place. Also, I don’t care how bad a comic was, nobody would waste a whole pie. Now a knife, that you would have, and could reuse. So to me… it made the most sense.

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11. Blogger of Wrongs says:

    September 27, 2006 at 10:18 pm

    He is clearly NOT a standup comedian but, instead, a very bad mime. He has no facepaint, no striped shirt and looks like Dick Cheney. No wonder the audience is pissed and is throwing tomatoes.Ever the peacemaker, I remainHilarious D

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