Living Down to Your Expectations

Politics

Isn’t this just how you knew Mitt Romney talked about “the help” when none of us were around?

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.

Review: Michael Kupperman, Tales Designed to Thrizzle Volume 1

Humor

Michael Kupperman’s Tales Designed to Thrizzle Volume 1 offers hilarious bits of absurd humor doled out in two-three page bursts. Kupperman is an adept visual mimic, skilled at turning out the heavy-lined styles of old woodblock prints and over-the-top ads that used to promise hidden knowledge in Bronze Age comic books.

His sense of humor is fine too, wry, conceptual and always subverting the authority of the visuals that inspired him. John Hodgman is a good comparison. If you don’t find a quick hidden history of Sex Blimps and Sex Holes to be promising (because of a loophole, it turns out the flesh trade is legal 10 feet above or below the ground), this may not be for you.

The last volume of the four seems to lose a little inspiration; several of the gags seem like retreads of better, earlier offerings. But it’s still good for a lot of laughs.

Ben Stiller Won’t Do Just Anything for a Laugh

Humor, Well Worth Reading

The June 25 issue of the New Yorker has a fascinating long-form profile on Ben Stiller written by Tad Friend. “Funny Is Money” uses the planning process for the upcoming Stiller-directed “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” film as a springboard to examine the comedian’s career.

It offers a candid look at the sausage-making process of studio filmmaking–“four quadrants” appeal and margin percentages. But it also breaks down Stiller, revealing him to both an obsessive worker and a prickly character put off by the gross-out humor he’s often called to do.