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People are complainin'. Seems kind of plausible, though subliminal suggestion of this caliber seems a bit out of Hart's reach. Anyhow, people dun like it. Doesn't seem to work too well as a "straight" joke ("It's an outhouse! So it's stinky! And asking oneself whether it was, well, that'd be just silly! Get it?"), but that wouldn't be the first time that's happened.

― nate detritus (natedetritus), Saturday, 22 November 2003 05:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Uhhhh.....i dunno. Seems pretty damn sublte, but didn't this cartoonist get in hot water before for another religious issue?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 22 November 2003 06:06 (twenty-one years ago)

He has used symbols ingeniously, particularly when his cartoon is about religion. Once he drew an elegant cartoon decrying the commercialization of Christmas, in which a cross seen through a window turns out to be the ribbon on a giant Christmas present.

Oddly, given how appropriate it would be in the article, they don't mention one of the several other times Hart's been in the news for apparently slamming non-Christians -- the supercessionist Easter strip in which the menorah morphed into a cross as the lights winked out in sync to JC's dying words.

This one, if it's intentional, isn't nearly as obvious, but certainly Hart falls under suspicion more frequently because he just keeps doing this.

― Tep (ktepi), Saturday, 22 November 2003 06:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Chasez is DEAD?

― nate detritus (natedetritus), Saturday, 22 November 2003 06:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Only for the weekend, don't worry.

― Tep (ktepi), Saturday, 22 November 2003 06:13 (twenty-one years ago)

I guess the fact that he never changed this name of strip from "B.C." ("before Christ") to the now universally accepted B.C.E. ("before the common era") is a bit of a giveaway.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 22 November 2003 06:18 (twenty-one years ago)

On the third day, He recorded with Basement Jaxx, and lo it was good.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 22 November 2003 06:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Instead of Easter we will now celebrate "Deathalude"

― nate detritus (natedetritus), Saturday, 22 November 2003 06:38 (twenty-one years ago)

WHERE'S YOUR CROSS AT?

Erm.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 22 November 2003 06:40 (twenty-one years ago)

it's just a bad cartoon. the idea of the intentional fallacy is fun and all, but really it's more or less an excuse for the interpreter/reader to fall prey to their own fallacies. i don't buy that hart has enough control over his symbolism in a conscious sense for whatever he might do unconsciously to have any meaning whatsoever.

that said, i wouldn't be surprised in the least if he decided to blatantly bash islam, but this time it strikes me as digging something out that really isn't there.

i love how the semiotics professor COMPLETELY misses the fact that it's a caveman using the outhouse, thus making "slam" an appropriate effect.

― rgeary (rgeary), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:05 (twenty-one years ago)

but why put a crescent on the outhouse door?! What am I missing?

― Broheems (diamond), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Outhouse doors often have crescents.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm not making that up. For some reason they do. Don't ask me why...maybe it has something to do with the significance of needing to relieve yourself in the middle of the night. In any event, it has nothing to do with Islam, I don't think.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:21 (twenty-one years ago)

― cinniblount (James Blount), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:21 (twenty-one years ago)

fair enough. color me schooled.

― Broheems (diamond), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:22 (twenty-one years ago)

the real question is WTF is ANY ref to christianity doing in a comic strip called "B.C."?

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:23 (twenty-one years ago)

actually the real question is why anyone over the age of 10 still reads it. it's not as if it's, yknow, funny or anything.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:24 (twenty-one years ago)

no way - the fat broad!

― cinniblount (James Blount), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:25 (twenty-one years ago)

plus: the aardvark

― cinniblount (James Blount), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:25 (twenty-one years ago)

not to mention: the ants

― cinniblount (James Blount), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:25 (twenty-one years ago)

as well as: jesus christ

― cinniblount (James Blount), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:25 (twenty-one years ago)

okay, i guess it probably used to be funny, but i sure missed all the good ones in the last decade or so.

doesn't hart write "the wizard of id"? i don't recall any christian references ever turning up in that one.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:42 (twenty-one years ago)

I like it on 'hi and lois' when beetle bailey just drops by and sleeps on their couch for the week

― cinniblount (James Blount), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:44 (twenty-one years ago)

That beetle bailey....he's such a loafer!

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I also like it when sarge breaks every bone in his body

― cinniblount (James Blount), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Ah Rex Morgan MD, you have the cure for the daily blues.

― Leee Majors (Leee), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:51 (twenty-one years ago)

ha ha. i work in the same department as m*rsh*ll bl*nsky. office worker, not professor. funny dude. apparently has smoked pot with bob dylan. i think he is tongue-in-cheek with his analysis. well, i hope. but knowing the new school it wouldn't surprise me too much if he was being serious.

― js, Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Remember that strip when Odie and Garfield took a collective dump on a shrine to Buddha? I tellya, the comics page is just a hotbed of militant blasphemy!

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:53 (twenty-one years ago)

there's also the occasional anti-zoroastrian rant in the lockhorns

― cinniblount (James Blount), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Hahahahahahaha! There's a word I didn't expect to creep up on ILE!

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:57 (twenty-one years ago)

"heh heh heh. oh, andy capp, you wife-beating drunk."

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Saturday, 22 November 2003 09:03 (twenty-one years ago)

How about all that poorly socialized home-schooling and fundamentalist hate-speech in "Family Circus"? Kids say the darndest things!

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 22 November 2003 09:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I read Beetle Bailey a week ago and it's all about Sarge's stupid dog now. It's pretty sad.

I've also realized how much I've changed in the past five years in part due to the fact that I now loathe Zippy the Pinhead. It's not that I don't "get it". I just get it and hate it. Wow, the common American is interested in awful, low culture! Thank you Bill Griffith!

― nate detritus (natedetritus), Saturday, 22 November 2003 09:10 (twenty-one years ago)

sarge's dog is cleverer than most nate!

― cinniblount (James Blount), Saturday, 22 November 2003 09:11 (twenty-one years ago)

not "stupid" like you say!

― cinniblount (James Blount), Saturday, 22 November 2003 09:11 (twenty-one years ago)

OK, yeah, he's more "cloying". Marmaduke is stupid.

― nate detritus (natedetritus), Saturday, 22 November 2003 09:13 (twenty-one years ago)

OH NO YOU DIDN'T!!!

― cinniblount (James Blount), Saturday, 22 November 2003 09:16 (twenty-one years ago)

"the Lockhorns"!!!! Christ I haven't thought of that strip in like a decade.

― Broheems (diamond), Saturday, 22 November 2003 09:17 (twenty-one years ago)

that basically was my parents.

― Broheems (diamond), Saturday, 22 November 2003 09:17 (twenty-one years ago)

― cinniblount (James Blount), Saturday, 22 November 2003 09:18 (twenty-one years ago)

my favorite lockhorns are when the wife emasculates the husband

― cinniblount (James Blount), Saturday, 22 November 2003 09:18 (twenty-one years ago)

"ZIGGY HAD GARFIELD NEUTERED? NOW THAT'S FUNNY!"

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 22 November 2003 14:01 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.chriddof.com/theyellowkid.jpg

― Chriddof (Chriddof), Saturday, 22 November 2003 14:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Bollocks. Let's try that again -

http://www.base58.com/~meowsy/theyellowkid.jpg

― Chriddof (Chriddof), Saturday, 22 November 2003 14:38 (twenty-one years ago)

i miss tumbleweeds. and dondi. and scroogie! my favorite strip ever about a loveable big league pitcher. and woody allen's stip was a hoot. i miss that one too. did anyone catch the obit of longtime mary worth writer John Saunders? he wrote Steve Roper too. he was 79.

― scott seward, Saturday, 22 November 2003 14:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I miss Mr Boffo

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Saturday, 22 November 2003 15:51 (twenty-one years ago)

http://members.aol.com/dubplatestyle/cathy.jpg

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Saturday, 22 November 2003 16:53 (twenty-one years ago)

yes, always one of my fave M&C strips. Thank you Fiddo.

― Jeremy the Kingfish (Kingfish), Saturday, 22 November 2003 17:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Robotman is the best. If this BC strip isn't bashing Islam, what is it doing? It doesn't make any sense at all otherwise, to me at least.

― Kris (aqueduct), Saturday, 22 November 2003 17:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Fiddo is a wise man.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 22 November 2003 18:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Skipping 69 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Since the meme of the crescent hole in the outhouse door is a very old and well established one, I think it's stretching things hugely and pointlessly to think this is about Islam - and as has been said, it doesn't make sense as a gag (even a k-lame one) with that reading either.

More generally I wouldn't call any religion shit, but I think they are all nonsense. With the amount of anti-Islamic feeling there is at the moment, I'd be inclined to be extremely cautious about saying anything more than that, whereas where I'm from Christianity is hardly the faith of an oppressed minority, so I'm reasonably happy with digs at that.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 23 November 2003 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I think the only way it could be intended to be a joke like custos explained, would be if it was clear that the character had no idea what the function of an outhouse is.
Exactly. You have to put the joke in the context of the overall comic.
"B.C." takes place in Caveman days. Neaderthals hadn't even invented the plow or the lever...how would they react to a square wooden "cave" that you shit in?

― Lord Custos Omicron (Lord Custos Omicron), Sunday, 23 November 2003 23:15 (twenty-one years ago)

and yet they're so familiar with jokes from 1947!

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 24 November 2003 01:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Web Classix!!!

http://www.simpleton.com/19980729.html

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 24 November 2003 02:19 (twenty-one years ago)

That's such a great article.

― Dan I, Monday, 24 November 2003 02:29 (twenty-one years ago)

two weeks pass...

― cinniblount (James Blount), Thursday, 11 December 2003 06:50 (twenty-one years ago)

TUMBLEWEED RAPE!!

― nate detritus (natedetritus), Thursday, 11 December 2003 07:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I just spent like 15 minutes tryng to figure out what thats supposed to be an anagram of. I know it has something to do with Islam, geese, and butts, but then I'm stumped.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 11 December 2003 07:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I've got it! Clearly he's trying to tell us that
"Islam's gonad but sweet gemstone."

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 11 December 2003 08:09 (twenty-one years ago)

I know, it's a very subtle apology for the offensive strip: "Islam now suggested to best, amen."

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 11 December 2003 08:11 (twenty-one years ago)

"Islam now mugged on testes-beast."
"Islam denotes sweet maggot buns."

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 11 December 2003 08:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Islam's beast god unsweet to me.
Islam's god: tuna between toes S&M.
Goat ween Islam must be tossed.

Islam's god must be sweet ta one.
Islam's best, a god sweet unto me.

― sucka (sucka), Thursday, 11 December 2003 11:56 (twenty-one years ago)

GOAT WEEN!! I'm dying with laughter!

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 11 December 2003 20:02 (twenty-one years ago)

this is cracking me up, esp. nate's comment/warning/accusation

― s1utsky (slutsky), Thursday, 11 December 2003 20:07 (twenty-one years ago)

This is what ILE is all about, right here.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 11 December 2003 20:08 (twenty-one years ago)

four weeks pass...

He's at it again!

"Two wongs don't make a Wright"????

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Saturday, 10 January 2004 02:59 (twenty-one years ago)

ok, he gets negative marks on that one just for being lazy.

― Kingfishee (Kingfish), Saturday, 10 January 2004 03:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Unbelievable. He's gotta be senile. I loved B.C. back in the day, but it's clearly time to put the old bastard out to pasture.

― Broheems (diamond), Saturday, 10 January 2004 03:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I just saw this. Does the man never learn!?

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Monday, 19 January 2004 23:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Uhhhh.....i dunno. Seems pretty damn sublte,

I'd just like to apologize again for this incredibly naiive and non-observant statement.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Another swipe at the Chinese, from a different comic strip?

http://www.comics.com/comics/getfuzzy/archive/images/getfuzzy20041829930129.gif

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Thursday, 29 January 2004 21:08 (twenty-one years ago)

This thread has taught that comic strips are generally not funny. I only thought they were because I used to be retarded.

― dean! (deangulberry), Thursday, 29 January 2004 21:13 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't see anything wrong with that Get Fuzzy strip.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Thursday, 29 January 2004 21:19 (twenty-one years ago)

maybe I would if I had the slightest clue as to what was supposed to be going on there

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 29 January 2004 21:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I guess I'm probably reading too much into that strip; never mind.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Thursday, 29 January 2004 22:35 (twenty-one years ago)

cause chinese people eat monkeys? or cats (for that matter)?

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 29 January 2004 22:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Stick to Dilbert, Doonesbury and Penny Arcade and you can avoid all this pain.

― Lord Custos Omicron (Lord Custos Omicron), Thursday, 29 January 2004 22:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, yeah; it's just that a lot of times when people bring that up it's to stir the pot, so to speak, playing on people's squeamishness and cultural preconceptions/prejudices. I'm not convinced that the last panel in that strip even refers to that, though. So I dunno.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Thursday, 29 January 2004 22:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I think Get Fuzzy is good and it's not the type to be putting in digs like that. I think it's one of the best-drawn strips around right now, it definitely looks like nothing else in the paper. The drawings have a wonderful sense of character design, texture, 3d-ness and expression. It can be pretty darn funny sometimes. It has some kind of lefty sympathies (see the strip where they get a garden gnome and the cat names it "Gnome Chomsky".) Most comics are poop so I don't read them but if I do I read this one and maybe 1 or 2 others, i like it.

― sucka (sucka), Thursday, 29 January 2004 23:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Okay, I ran this past my partner, who is Chinese, and she sort of cut to the heart of what I found dicey with this particular comic (keeping in mind that I've always enjoyed Get Fuzzy before). The assumption that 1.3 billion Chinese people actually eat monkeys is kind of faulty because first off it's a delicacy, and second of all it's not just any monkey that goes into the pot. Now, I'm not at all sure that it was Conley's intention, it sort of plays around in the arena of "Oooo look at these people and the weird gross things they eat!" It's sort of a trite punchline that plays on people's stereotypes of the Chinese, which is entering into dangerous territory for the sake of a joke that's not really even all that funny. Again, I don't think that was necessarily the intention but it still leaves me feeling a bit uneasy.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Friday, 30 January 2004 00:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I assumed that 1.3 Billion chinese were wrong about the year of the monkey.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 30 January 2004 00:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, see, that's why I'm not sure about the intention.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Friday, 30 January 2004 00:21 (twenty-one years ago)

it's not exactly like the cat is the voice of reason in that strip.

― dyson (dyson), Friday, 30 January 2004 00:57 (twenty-one years ago)

four years pass...

http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/6010/crbc0604052ee.gif

― and what, Saturday, 2 February 2008 20:57 (seventeen years ago)

you would have to be really looking for the racism to find it, and frankly anyone who would equate "stinky" w/ islam and go public with it is guilty of pushing the racist semiotics they are accusing hart of; brilliantly, the strip contains this possibility: "it" (islam) could stink, but it's also possible that it's the observer who stinks

-- Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Sunday, 23 November 2003 15:44 (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

― Dom Passantino, Saturday, 2 February 2008 21:04 (seventeen years ago)

people tracer will play the YOURE OVERANALYZING!!! save-a-hoe move on:

1) bill clinton
2) johny hart

o_O

― and what, Saturday, 2 February 2008 21:10 (seventeen years ago)

3)Paul Tibbets

― Frogman Henry, Saturday, 2 February 2008 21:14 (seventeen years ago)

scientific acclaim?

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 2 February 2008 22:29 (seventeen years ago)

"Yeah you know, like when a scientist makes acclaim"

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 2 February 2008 22:29 (seventeen years ago)

http://www.jdl.org/images/hart_toon_color.jpg

"subtle"

― Ol Bertie Dastard, Saturday, 2 February 2008 22:45 (seventeen years ago)

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y53/Nullifidian/bc_creationism.gif

― Ol Bertie Dastard, Saturday, 2 February 2008 22:48 (seventeen years ago)

If that's supposed to be a Channukiah turning into a cross, it isn't one.

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 2 February 2008 22:49 (seventeen years ago)

If this dude believes in "cave men", and the earth is only 5000 years old or whatever, then where did these guys live? Civilization and agriculture .... oh man, it's impossible to understand what these people think, and yet do they really have as much influence over U.S. politics as it seems?

― burt_stanton, Saturday, 2 February 2008 22:51 (seventeen years ago)

http://www.hollywoodjesus.com/BCcomics_easter.htm

However, for Easter 2001 Johnny Hart wanted to do something very different and special. He states, "I noticed one day that the center section of the Menorah -- the sacred symbol of Judaism, bore the shape of the cross. I wanted everyone to see the cross in the Menorah. It was a revelation to me, that tied God's chosen people to their spiritual next of kin -- the disciples of the Risen Christ."

― Ol Bertie Dastard, Saturday, 2 February 2008 22:56 (seventeen years ago)

Hanukias have 9 candles, but traditional temple menorahs (which Hart is apparently going for) have 7.

― Ol Bertie Dastard, Saturday, 2 February 2008 23:02 (seventeen years ago)

true

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 2 February 2008 23:05 (seventeen years ago)

well, Hart's dead now.

cryingbigbroad.jpg

― Mackro Mackro, Sunday, 3 February 2008 01:26 (seventeen years ago)

man i thought this strip was funny when i was a little kid. taht was long before he turned into some zealot asshole though. the BC game for Commodore 64 was excellent!

― akm, Sunday, 3 February 2008 01:42 (seventeen years ago)

AND HE DID

― iiiijjjj, Sunday, 3 February 2008 02:08 (seventeen years ago)

the offensiveness of BC lies in the fact that it's painfully unfunny. even moreso than most newspaper comic-strips, which is quite a feat.

― LaMonte, Sunday, 3 February 2008 04:11 (seventeen years ago)

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The "Johnny Hart's subliminal dig against Muslims in B.C." controversy

OH NO YOU DIDN'T!!!