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A Public Apology to Canada

22 Apr

April 22, 2011

The Editors and Staff of Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride wish to extend our sincere and humble apologies to the great nation of Canada.

It has been brought to our attention that a blog post earlier this week, “Grocery Shopping. What a Chore“, may have created a false and objectionable view of Canada. In particular, this section:

And yes, I specifically mean Americans. I’m sorry Canadians, I have nothing against you but a lot of you speak French and that just won’t do. North America is an English-speaking continent, that is if you ignore large parts of  The United States in general and about 2/3 of New York City in particular.

This was actually intended as a slam against France.

We regret any misunderstanding.

The official policy of The Tepid Ride has always been pro-Canada. In an effort to improve relations with our cold Northern brothers Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride would like to present this list of notable Canadians.

Bob and Doug McKenzie
Wayne Gretzky
Wolverine
Captain Canuck
Sir Charles Tupper, former Prime Minister (May 1896-July1896)

Canada also has a thriving entertainment industry. These are the top ten shows on  Canadian television for the 2009/2010 season:

1.Survivor: Samoa & Heroes Vs. Villains – 2,929,000 viewers
2.Grey’s Anatomy  – 2,899,000
3.Criminal Minds – 2,807,000
4.American Idol – Performance  – 2,789,000
5.American Idol – Results  – 2,686,000
6.The Amazing Race 15 & 16  – 2,529,000
7.House – 2,493,000
8.CSI: New York  – 2,349,000
9.The Mentalist  – 2,279,000
10.NCIS  – 2,201,000

Canada has also had a strong influence on popular culture and has featured prominently in many hit movies, such as South Park and Rumble in the Bronx.

It is the fervent hope of The Editor’s and Staff of Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride that, with a little understanding, the peoples of The United States and Canada can come together. In truth, both countries share many similarities, except that the dollar is worth slightly less in Canada.

We hope that this apology has begun the process of healing. In the future, we hope to incorporate more pro-Canada content in The Tepid Ride, and in the spirit of camaraderie, we won’t even mention Celine Dion, eh?

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The Saturday Comics: The Phantom, Day by Day

16 Apr

April 16, 2011

A daily comic strip has a near-impossible task. It is serialized seven days per week, each week. While it needs to present a cohesive and continuing story, each day’s strip needs to stand alone as well. And it needs to be done in only three or four panels.

Newer strips may be forgiven, just a bit, if they sometimes flounder. After all, comic strips are an old medium in an era of instant gratification. While there are many great new strips, it boggles my mind to come across one of the big names of the genre that seems to have not just lost its way, but to have driven off the road, through a grove of trees, and somehow ended up floating in a pool in somebody’s backyard.

I present, day by day,

DAY ONE:

OK, I get it. I came in at the end of an adventure. It looks like a happy ending. It is actually a good thing I came in now so I can enjoy the start of a whole new story tomorrow. Looking forward to it.

DAY TWO:

Well, that’s nice. Sort of the same thing as yesterday though. And it seems a bit of a waste, story-wise, to do it in one big splash but I guess it gets the emotion across. OK, let’s see where this goes tomorrow.

DAY THREE:

What the? What’s the point of this? Is the next arc about haircuts? If this were a play I could almost hear the stage manager hissing “vamp!” while the star desperately searches for her line. This is ridiculous, the big splash yesterday should have ended the arc. I’m getting a bit tired of this, hopefully things will move ahead tomorrow.

DAY FOUR:

Um, Ok. More wasting time. Maybe they haven’t hammered out the next script yet and just tossed this in? I can’t figure out a purpose to this strip, unless it is to reinforce their dedication to fighting evil? This isn’t much of a superhero strip, it is more like a bad show on the religious station with Kirk Cameron. I’m not hopeful for tomorrow.

DAY FIVE:

Ahh, now we’re getting somewhere.

DAY SIX:

Huh? Where’s The Phantom? And isn’t that the guy who was supposed to be in jail? Who are these people? I sat through almost a week for this? That strip could have been told in three panels. And re-read the second panel. “Colonel Weeks met the unknown commander.” “Worubu doubts it.” There is a verb tense problem there, and I’m usually not that picky outside of a grammar blog but that is really annoying to read. I really hope The Phantom picks up but I’m losing hope.

DAY SEVEN:

UGH! Back to that? It’s like the Sunday strip exists in a different timeline, and maybe it might. Many strips do a separate storyline on Sundays because some papers only run the Sunday strips. So I can follow the annoying story on Sunday, or follow the slow and boring story during the week, or maybe wait and see if indeed that Sunday strip is part of the same story as the weekly though it doesn’t seem to be.

DAY EIGHT:

To Hell with The Phantom. Popeye never fails. I got more out of that strip than an entire week of The Phantom. And why not? It looks like they are running a classic Sagendorf strip.

That Phantom run may have been the worst week of a comic strip that I have ever read, and that’s coming from someone who read comics written and drawn by Rob Liefeld so you know I’ve read some bad comics. The artist of this strip, Paul Ryan, was the artist on one of my favorite runs of the Fantastic Four so this hurts all the more.

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