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The LA Times has mercifully discontinued Mallard Fillmore, on the theory that anyone trolling the comics pages for hilarious hijinks and knee-slapping shenanigans are more likely to find them in the panels of Rex Morgan, M.D.  Nevertheless, a commenter in this Sadly, No! thread pointed me to today’s edition of Bruce Tinsley’s long-running series: How Many Ways Can A Duck Suck?…

Well, THAT ought’a persuade Al Gore to STFU.  Unless you happen to recall this post, in which we discussed Mr. Tinsley’s habit of getting arrested for driving under the influence.  Granted, his caricatures are ugly, but you have to admit, the man draws what he knows:

As fellow Hoosier Doghouse Riley pointed out at the time, Mr. Tinsley wasn’t some innocent Joe who had a couple of beers with fellow conservative waterfowl fanciers, then fell afoul of an overzealous traffiic cop.  He was a repeat, and, as it turns out, extremely enthusiastic offender:

Guy blows a .14 on a second arrest in four months and he’s free on $750 bail, plus it somehow takes a week for the news to get out. He’s got an angel somewhere. And he could now be looking at a Class D felony, and definitely some jail time. Should be interesting to watch. Plus the opportunity to say, “Mallard Fillmore, by convicted felon Bruce Tinsley” would almost make reading the thing worth it.

So while I’m happy that Mr. Tinsley is reducing his carbon footprint, I think it has less to do with ecological altruism, and more to do with the court dropping his drivers license into a document shredder.  And Bruce?  The “legislation forcing everyone to do what you do” is called Indiana Code 9-30-5.  You might want to pay special attention to the section on license suspension, and mandatory jail time after second offense.

But by all means, get on your high horse about people who voluntarily ride a bike.  I’m pretty sure they can’t cite you for cantering down the equestrian trail while slightly drunker than Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou.

34 Responses to “Cold Duck”

FRIST!!!

“I’m pretty sure they can’t cite you for cantering down the equestrian trail while slighter drunker than Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou.”

As shickled-titless as I am to see a ref to Cat Ballou, honeychild, don’t you KNOW that it’s now illegal in at least 20 states to ride yo’ plowhorse whilst innebriated?!?!? Same goes for lawnmowers, Li’l Rascals, and powered scooters of any build.

Granted, it took Louisiana ’til 2001 to actually outlaw drunnken horseriding on the thoroughfares and riddled-with-potholes-like-swiss-cheese roads of this state, but they finally got it DONE, by gum!

Tinsley — if only that motherfucker would finally wrap his car or bicycle around a fucking TREE. Then he wouldn’t have to make any more “stunning confessions” — THE WORLD WOULD FINALLY KNOW THAT HE’S A RAGING, SELF-LOATHING ALCOHOLIC HYPOCRITE ASSHOLE, and he wouldn’t be able to say or (sloppily “draw”) another fucking word about it!

He’s wasting my oxygen AND my funny pages with his dreadfully moronic bullshit, and I want to save the ozone layer by turning him into fertilizer, especially considering that he’s 90% bullshit already.

Hee hee. Is Mallard “voluntarily” riding his widdle bike everywhere ‘cos he’s had two DUIs too? Inquiring minds want to know!

Mallard-hunters can converge on Duck And Cover (http://duckcover.blogspot.com/), where we tear Tinsley’s “works” apart with relish on a daily basis. (Immature and pointless? Mayhap. But it beats expensive therapy.)

There, it was revealed that Tinsley had a biking-related letter published in USAToday two days before the above-mentioned strip. Here’s the full-letter quote from the USAToday website:

Bruce Tinsley – Indianapolis

Hats off to USA TODAY for its great cycling coverage. As the cartoonist who created the Mallard Fillmore cartoon, I get most of my ideas for my cartoon while riding my bike.

Next to politics, cycling is my passion, and its great to see cycling getting some great play in the newspaper.

But I was disappointed in USA TODAY’s selection of the “coolest frames,” which ran in a breakout box with the article “High-end pedals to the metal.” I ride a Roark, a custom-built bike designed by a little aerospace company in Brownsburg, Ind. The company took the “Best Titanium Bicycle” award at the North American Handmade Bicycle show in 2006 and beat out lots of the more expensive bikes named in the article.

If people are going to invest in a bike, the custom frames are the way to go.

Holy shit, he publicized up his strip in a completely unrelated letter. L-O-S-E-R.

Also, no one at D&C could come up with a single example of “Greens” who want to force people to bike through legislation. Most soaks that pathetic and beyond help see big pink elephants; Tinsley sees little Green men, probing his anus with legislation.

Does anybody else have the messed-up margin thing again?

It’s still a better comic than “Day by Day” or “Faithmouse”.

wow, maybe he draws everyone in a thuggish manner because that’s what he looks (and thinks) like (not to dis thugs, mind you). It’s been said that all art is self portrait. After seeing his mug it seems pretty clear.

hell, most recent legislation involving bicycles has been the mandatory helmet laws, which in many cases discourages bicycle riding so insurance companies can have an out in not paying for long term brain trauma cases. as in “your honor, the claimant was breaking the law by not wearing the required helmet, therefore we don’t have to honor his claim”
and good luck on getting most state transportation departments to use federal funds on bicycle infrastructure without major delays and skimming of the top.

“I get most of my ideas for my cartoon while riding my bike,” he sez?
Shit, it looks like he draws the fucking thing while he’s riding his precious, “custom framed” bike, too! Does he get his ideas before or after he collides with the Scottish policeman? Hell.

Holy shit, he publicized up his strip in a completely unrelated letter. L-O-S-E-R.

He also plugged this Roark company. Angling for a free bike frame, I’m guessing. Too bad USAToday cut his lavish praise for a locally-formulated hangover remedy. He could’ve really used a supply of that.

it looks like he draws the fucking thing while he’s riding his precious, “custom framed” bike, too!

Nah. He “draws” it by tracing Opus from old Bloom Counties. For dialogue, free-form haranguing, to taste.

Guess he feels that his titanium bike frame and love of pedal power will assist in repairing his newly created image as an ignorant drunk.

Ironic that he uses a stereotype so often foisted on the ‘liberuals’ in an effort to publicly redeem himself.

newly created in his mind, its always been apparent that he’s an ignorant ass with every strip he writes. — just want to make clear I didn’t think his stupidity is a new thing.

He hasn’t lowered his carbon footprint. He’s just replaced his car emissions with more beer farts.

At least he doesn’t live here Up Nort’ where the drunks drive their CO2 monster snowmobiles from bar to bar in the winter after they lose their auto licenses.

Boy gives a bad name to ducks.

Heydave, for a second I read that as “Boy gives a bad name to DRUNKS.”
Which is true too.
He also gives hacks a bad name.

Mallard Fillmore, by Dullard Swillmore.

Gundamhead: Not to mention The Leftersons (has there ever been a funny right-wing comic). I’ll admit there are times when I’m forced to admit that I to agree with the duck, but he’s too damn smug about it to see it as a way to set up common ground. As for Faithmouse, Lacey seems like a pretty nice guy, but with some of his comics (since Timothy is supposed to represent the worst of him) I wonder if he’s got a few screws loose.

As for Faithmouse, Lacey seems like a pretty nice guy, but with some of his comics (since Timothy is supposed to represent the worst of him) I wonder if he’s got a few screws loose.

All true.
Yours sincerely,
Mr. Faithmouse

Loose screws on display at THE FAITHMOUSE REQUEST THREAD at PoE.

No more local news about that DUI, or none that I’ve seen, but assuming that Indianapolis dateline in the USAT letter is right he’s migrated about 45 miles from the scene of the crime since. (Brownsburg, in the western suburbs, was once a pastoral stop on my own youthful cycling trips; now it’s one large strip mall, thanks to our refusal to let the Greens dictate land use.) I trust he took the bus.

See, I tend to find Faithmouse and the like at least unintentionally silly. Or I can tell where the joke is and see how it just wasn’t funny.

Most of the time, I have no idea where the joke is in Mallard Fillmore. None. Whatsoever. It gives me hope, really — if I fail at my current profession and my backup profession, I can be a right wing cartoonist. Apparently drawing and joke telling skills aren’t required.

Exactly Vivek, but I think that goes for most of the comics I see in my local paper. Bad drawing, stupid lines and captions and a reliance on worn out cliches depending on old ignorances and prejudices. I skip the funnies most mornings as they simply make me want to crawl back in bed and wake up in another, intelligent universe.

By the way, for how long will we have to endure Drunkmore’s sneering, Bowryesque mug?

Kate: I agree, most comic strips are crap with a few rare exceptions like Get Fuzzy and the now defunct Liberty Meadows. It makes me wonder how it got so bad.

He does look like Texas Governor Rick Perry’s evil.. er.. more evil twin.

Or Dan Ackroyd in Trading Places.

You wonder where he gets the dialog for Mallard?

That’s easy. He just uses one of Rushbo’s talking points (probably listening while he weaves down the road).

It’s not funny, of course, but it does serve an ideological purpose. Because Rushbo’s talking points are just so much more convincing when coming out of the mouth of a cartoon duck.

If Tinsley gets his ideas while pedaling about, that explains a lot. Maybe it’d help if we chipped in an bought him a seat.

Certainly newspaper strips have declined lately; at some point, every fool who could scrawl semi-consistently decided they were qualified. (Irony! Aaron McGruder’s Boondocks was so vastly improved upon when the concept taken out of his exclusive control and given to a Hollywood committee of writers and artists that he actually abandoned his loathsome, heavily-xeroxed strip.) But some don’t totally stink the place up.

Here’s what I LIKE: Zits, Tina’s Groove, Sherman’s Lagoon, Pooch Cafe, Non Sequitur, Mutts, Monty, Lio, Get Fuzzy, Doonesbury, Dilbert, Candorville.

Then there’s the stuff I read every day just to wince at/snark on: Sally Forth, Luann, Garfield, For Better Or For Worse, Born Loser, Blondie.

But the best stuff? Online. Not perfect, but better than the junk in the local fishwrap. Wapsi Square, Dr. McNinja, C’est la Vie, Lackadaisycats, Bob The Angry Flower, Perry Bible Fellowship, Maakies, Red Meat, Gone With The Blastwave, Girly.

And Sinfest. Man I love Sinfest. This is what the religious-nut artists should be looking at; the strip is quite pro-religion–even preachy, in that it usually has a message–but it’s delivered with style, grace, and beauty, rather than a sledgehammer. OH YEH AND IT’S TEH FUNNAY.

I’ll also flog Comics Curmudgeon too, it’s a nice blog for throwing rocks at daily crapstrips. Just DON’T MENTION MALLARD FILLMORE. You’ll get banned. Trust me on this.

If you don’t know any of the strips I’ve listed, Google and treat yourself. I’m always open to new stuff. What do YOU like?

I totally dig Perry Bible Fellowship, the artist is quite good. If you’re into angry reviews try this link: http://badwebcomics.blogspot.com/2007/06/ctrlaltdel.html The guy does a great review of bad webcomics.

Your Funky Winterbean parody? I laughed. “Let me cry, Daddy”? I almost threw up so hard I turned inside out.

Oh my God–that is SO bookmarked, now that I’ve cleaned up. Thank you, YHE!

…Now I just have to wait until he rips up a webcomic I like, and I can get all hurt and pissy.

Thanks Happenstance, none of the good comics you listed are published in my local firestarter.

I will though, google the others.

The Boston Globe runs some good comics, but lo, I am poor and do not buy the Globe at this time, in fact I refuse to buy the other , someone else does and I end up looking to see who just got bagged or if there’s a rapist loose again. Or I want to suffer some bad effort at humor and art.

All of the print-funnies I listed can be found online for free as well, and most will be at one or more of these sites:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com
http://www.comics.com
http://www.gocomics.com
http://www.uclick.com
http://www.ucomics.com

(The webcomics all have individual homepages, natch.)

“Because Rushbo’s talking points are so much more convincing when coming out of the mouth of a cartoon duck”
Well, relatively speaking…that’s probably true.

Dude, Sinfest was so 1998.

I think the only webcomics I’ve read recently are PBF and Diesel Sweeties. I used to read Penny Arcade, Scary Go Round, and a bunch of others, though.

Mallard Fillmore, by Dullard Swillmore.

Left by Mentis Fugit

OK, that made me laugh.

The difference between me and “Greens” is I don’t want legislation forcing everyone to do what I do

It’s the difference between him and MADD, too.

oh my crap. give the guy a break, just because he did a bicycle comic doesn’t mean it has to be connected to his drinking and driving. people should lay off. Mallard’s a H E R O