(Comics and the Media) Sitting at a fast food joint in Los Angeles years ago, the story goes, Matt Groening and Gary Panter dreamed of invading the media with their crazy cartoons and designs. They'd heard all the purist claptrap about "maintaining one's artistic integrity" and "not selling out to The Man's Corporate Death Culture," and the like -- and they wanted none of it. What is the Media, after all, but a vast network of communication? If artists really want to reach the people to whom they want to communicate, doesn't it make sense to invade the networks through which they can be reached? Drunk on the idea of burrowing into the Great Culture Machine from within, Panter later decided to set a list of reasons for doing so down on paper -- and so, The Rozz Tox Manifesto was born.
It certainly worked for them. Panter went on to design sets for television shows like Peewee's Playhouse, while Groening went on to... oh, I forget. They each displayed a great deal of creativity, wit and panache in the projects they chose, and American culture is the better for it today.
Which brings me to Scott Adams. Adams shares Panter and Groening's ability to get noticed -- he managed to capture the frustrations and shared experiences of millions of workers in the hi-tech sectors of the '90s economy with his strip Dilbert, and every once in a while he even managed to be funny. He's not exactly the best cartoonist in the world, but what Adams is really good at is marketing -- usually himself, and quite often with no discernable value added whatsoever.
Case in point: with a new, weasel-themed book of cartoons out, he needed a way to promote it. So what does he do? He announced that yesterday was "National Weasel Day," and invited his readers to vote on something called the Weasel Awards. Blah blah blah Martha Stewart blah blah blah Microsoft blah blah blah Democrats blah blah blah. Nothing you couldn't hear on Leno on an off night. Rozz Tox students, take note -- the media fell for it big time, rolling out the bandwidth, page space and screentime to duly note the "event," usually regurgitating the exact same press releases almost verbatim.
You can see what I mean here, here and here. Oh, and here.
And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And let us not forget here, here and here.
Also here, plus here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
Did I mention here? There's also here, here and here.
And here, and here as well.
There's also here, here, here, here and here.
Don't forget here and here! You probably don't want to overlook here or here, either. Plus: here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
Not to mention here and here.
Consider this a little reminder -- it's great if you can get creativity and brilliance in there on the little screen (or up there on the big screen), but it's by no means necessary. Those screens have to be filled with something, and in the end, it really doesn't matter to the people responsible for those screens the exact contents of that something. Invading the media is no small task, but it's not necessarily an impressive feat, either. Indeed, being too particular can actually be a hindrance. Fortunately, Scott Adams doesn't have to worry about such trivialities. (Don't forget here!)
