Kliban cats are objectively very funny.
STOP LAUGHING AT ME NOW
I had no idea those things had a name.
My dad has a poster of the "love to eat them mousies" cartoon. I had no idea it was part of a larger movement.
i guess people are amused by the way he draws -- none of the captions seem to be funny
wikipedia says he came to prominence drawing for playboy, so maybe it's some weird kind of "only reads it for the articles" thing, except with funniness where the pictures of girls w/o clothes would be?
There was a woman at my gym, short, cute, big eyes, who looked EXACTLY like a Precious Moments cartoon figure. I stared at her and racked my brain so I could tell people what I meant. The amorphous twins! Who lean against each other and blow a dandelion! That's her!
She looked exactly like a sweet figurine, but when a deranged person invaded the department she worked in, banging on all the doors and tearing fixtures off the wall, everyone else locked their office door and called the campus cops but she lit out after him to tell him to fucking cut it out and stop this crap immediately.
I seem to remember that those were uproariously funny to my friends and me when we were about 14.
twins! Who lean against each other and blow a dandelion!
Dirty.
The cat cartoons were his least entertaining, but I gather that they were lucrative because of the merchandise. Some people apparently think, "A mug with a cat on it! I &hearts cats." Some of his other stuff was brilliant.
She looked exactly like a sweet figurine... but she lit out after him to tell him to fucking cut it out
Having grown up with a mother and two sisters who were all entranced by Precious Moments figurines, I adore this story.
I read stuff all the time that I think this is should be an Unfogged post, or an Unfogged thread, but they're all so god damned depressing I don't bring them up.
12: The cats really got to you, huh?
There are entire blogs that's just old cartoons. That's pretty awesome.
For example: http://mikelynchcartoons.blogspot.com/2009/04/best-cartoons-of-year-1945-part-2.html
This is pretty awesome: http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2009/04/09/the-style-issue
Enough Kliban cats for most practical purposes.
She looked exactly like a sweet figurine, but when a deranged person invaded the department she worked in, banging on all the doors and tearing fixtures off the wall, everyone else locked their office door and called the campus cops but she lit out after him to tell him to fucking cut it out and stop this crap immediately.
My tiny sister is the felon specialist in her rehab job. A lot of tough guys are suckers for moms. Probablt for little sisters too.
A ton of non-cat Kliban.
http://www.coldbacon.com/kliban2.html
Barely seen any myself, but he's very well regarded.
Many of those non-cat cartoons are funny.
OMG, he did The Biggest Tongue in Tunisia. I love that book. See this and this
From the link in 11:
"I have to admit," he said, "that I'm one of those people that still thinks the dishwasher is a miracle. What a device! And I have to admit that because I think that way, I like to load it. I like to look in and see how that dishes were magically cleaned."If this is the kind of thing he'd contribute, I really wish he'd speak up in court more often.
I also love how the bad photoshopping ruin the picture. What were they thinking?
In one of my links. I'm not telling you which one.
22: Philadelphia has a binary star? Who knew?
21: The impression seemed to be that this is a sad little boy who desperately wants his childhood back and thinks it perfectly appropriate to use his Supreme Court seat to try to bring America along with him. That's disturbing.
11. Wow, that stuff about Clarence Thomas. Just wow.
Dropping in to say that I am mistrustful of the slant in 11 based on the source. Reporters' bylines matter.
I'm not saying Thomas was quoted inaccurately, just that a NYT profile of him could turn out to be like letting your ex Photoshop pictures of your new wedding.
Whoops, we have an analogy ban for a reason. Sorry! I'm banned!
29: Fair enough.
Re parents and Kliban cats and such, I fear that most of us are destined to become culturally pathetic as we age even if we don't start out that way.
You know, sometimes a person's ex has a very good sense of what they are really like. And when they say things that are consistent with what the person's other exes say, their comments are pretty credible.
I'm not saying Thomas was quoted inaccurately, just that a NYT profile of him could turn out to be like letting your ex Photoshop pictures of your new wedding.
And yet.
Re parents and Kliban cats and such, I fear that most of us are destined to become culturally pathetic as we age even if we don't start out that way.
Not me man! I'm always gonna be just as cool as I am now!
I'm always gonna be just as cool as I am now!
Me too. Exactly as cool.
Also, longer 30.2: "I used to be with it! Then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it anymore, and what's it is strange and scary to me."
Quoting The Simpsons is an integral part of my style.
It's just that we're going to raise rock stars by comparison.
35 gets it exactly right, as does 37.
Speak for yourself. I plan to raise quiet, bookish children who nevertheless have an unobtrusive intensity and beauty that, while it doesn't call attention to itself, can't but be attended to, once noticed.
My parents used to call me "the world's youngest forty-year-old." This was when I was about ten.
My sister used to say something similar of me.
Everything was better in 1966. (YMMV)
42 was what I was trying to recollect.
44: I'll buy the 1966 part, but not so much the everything was better when you were 12 thing. (Born in 1966 and unable to defend the late 70's as a high point in American popular culture.)
I plan to raise quiet, bookish children
...just as soon as he finds suitable ones to steal.
I prefer to call my windowless van the Bookmobile.
Some people age less gracefully.
With parents like that, however, I fear that Heebie's redneckification plans are doomed to failure.
46: Hm? You're confusing me. I thought you said the other day that you were 56. Maybe that was someone else. Halford, maybe. I'm not remembering. Nevermind.
(Born in 1966 and unable to defend the late 70's as a high point in American popular culture.)
I thought this was a pretty good list of music from 1980.
The mid-70s were a good period for American film.
51: I'm a speed limit. And to celebrate that milestone I got big, fat honking ticket (4 freaking license points* as well) for exceeding that very limit on my birthday eve while listening to a birthday-themed "Submit 5" on World Cafe. It was kinda Alanis Morironic.
*Not that I'm complaining .. too much. But shit, I was just a few MPH over the general run of traffic.
I WILL ONLY LECTURE TO YOUR CHILDREN IF YOUR INSTITUTE MAKES ARRANGEMENTS FOR A FANCY HOT-PINK LECTERN THAT GLOWS FROM THE INSIDE.
51: Nah, I think you're confusing yourself.
55: Damn, we're right out of those. Oh well.
42: In college I had a GF who referred to me as "Old Man." I'm actually less of a fogy now than I was back then, so maybe there's hope.
In college I had a GF who referred to me as "Old Man."
It's funny how much more significant a 9-year age gap seems when you're 20 and she's 11, innit?
I'm only about 9 years younger than my favorite college teacher.
I think Kliban did the cartoon where the caption is "And the Lord smote the Babylonians with model trains, and grieved them sorely."
Also one where Jesus is nailed up on the cross and there are some Roman soldiers holding playing cards down near his feet and one of them is saying something along the lines of "9 of diamonds! That's right! Holy Zeus, how does he do that?".
Both are pretty damn funny.
The cat stuff though? Not so much.
59: Ah, but you were so much older then,
You're younger than that now.*
*Sorry, Bob, the guys outdid you on this one.
I had a Kliban cat tshirt when I was a kid. And we all had Kliban cat beach towels.
I have gotten progressively younger in my presentation for the last ten years. I just hope I can gracefully age into quaintness instead of crotchetiness.
My dad has a poster of the "love to eat them mousies" cartoon.
Love to eat them mousies,
Mousies what I love to eat,
Bite they little heads off,
Nibble on they tiny feet.
(From memory. When I was ten, I could not finish singing that w/out laughing uncontrollably .... The B. Kliban thing is quintessential Seventies.)
