#23585: — 05/01  at  02:48 PM
Did you notice that B.C. is distributed by Creators Syndicate?

#23586: craig — 05/01  at  02:49 PM
I noticed a couple years ago that the B.C. I loved as a kid didn't exist anymore, it was now all right-wing crap.

When did he lose his mind?

#23588: — 05/01  at  02:55 PM
Hart is a tedious windbag who ceased being funny a long time ago.
He's living proof that becoming a fundamentalist Christian is equivalent to a lobotomy.
My local paper cancelled him -- what a relief.

#23589: Orac — 05/01  at  02:57 PM
I agree. B.C. hasn't been funny for years. He's been drifting more and more into fundamentalistm.

#23593: Hank Fox — 05/01  at  03:30 PM
Is there some sort of absolute limit to the humor of comic strips? I remember Peanuts, Garfield, B.C., Shoe and plenty of others being funny, and then ebbing off into dull sameness.

I've always assumed it was me, just losing interest. But Calvin and Hobbes never ceased to be wonderful fun, and Dilbert still cracks me up on occasion.

Most Favorite Strips of All Time, for me:

Calvin and Hobbes
Dilbert
Rick O'Shay
Dick Tracy
Alley Oop
Pogo ("We have met the enemy, and he is us.")
Doonesbury (although it seemed much better years ago)

Best single-panel cartoonist: Gahan Wilson.

Someday when all questions are answered, I want to know why anyone, EVER, read things like Rex Morgan, Apartment 3G, or Mary Worth. I want to know why Mark Trail and Prince Valiant couldn't have been allowed to die decent deaths. And I want to know why someone doesn't kill off the guy who does Gasoline Alley, just as a public service to the rest of us.

#23596: dr. dave — 05/01  at  03:50 PM
The thing I don't get about B.C. is... if you don't believe in evolution, then why the hell would you write a strip about cavemen? If the earth was created in 4000 BC, didn't cavemen not even exist? Didn't we just wander out of the Garden of Eden and invent agriculture right away?

Make up your mind. Idiot.

#23602: Ken Cope — 05/01  at  04:35 PM
I did provide spoilers for you; I thought you'd want to share the misery, PZ.

As for all the time-slippage and anachronisms (dinos and cartoon characters living together) irony is clearly beyond Hart's bronze age mentality. Even the strip's name is ironic; it's B.C., not A.D.!

I have yet to learn how to make money selling the same bad drawing over and over while filling the word balloons with worsening tripe.

I did work for a time within earshot of Disney's Glen Keane, who got all of the talent his father, the creator of The Family Circus, didn't have. Animators were staging faux conversions to Xtianity to work with him on his Beast team. As Iraqi launched SCUD missiles were exploding over Israel, their only concern was whether or not the Temple in Jerusalem had to be destroyed once, or destroyed, rebuilt, and re-destroyed, before they'd all be raptured.

Perhaps you'll be happier to learn that the folks who brought you Bible stories as performed by 3D animated vegetables could not maintain their persistent vegetative state. You can read the post-mortem of The Relig-tables here.

#23603: Rana — 05/01  at  04:49 PM
Hank -- This is why one reads those terrible serial strips.

#23607: — 05/01  at  05:13 PM
His meter is lousy.

#23608: Ken Cope — 05/01  at  05:16 PM
Gwangi, the meter isn't even his; it's from The Beverly Hillbillies, or, if you prefer, SNL's The Bel Arabs.

#23609: — 05/01  at  05:20 PM
Yeah, I know. That's why I said his meter was lousy. There are several places in there ("Allowed", for example) where you have to stretch out words to make them fit the original tune.

#23612: — 05/01  at  05:34 PM
"Dear God, thank you for ZiggyB.C. comics, little baby ducks, and 'Sweatin' to the Oldies' volumes one, two, and four."

#23616: JMJanssen — 05/01  at  06:02 PM
Anyone read Fafblog today?

#23618: Matt Brauer — 05/01  at  06:16 PM
That peg-legged caveman is a dead ringer for what I imagine John A. Davison to be like.

#23620: — 05/01  at  06:52 PM
I beg your indulgence for a moment. Do you mind if a Christian Fisks the strip?

Panel 1. Darwin was never a preacher. He had hoped to be one, to further his interests in natural things -- many Anglican preachers of that time spent their weeks in studying nature. But Darwin never was a preacher.

Panel 2. Darwin took a general degree. The college did not offer a degree in theology, nor in anything else at that time. One either graduated, or did not. Darwin's studies emphasized geology, and after he took his final round of exams, and passed, he stayed on for some graduate study in geology. Among others, Adam Sedgwick -- Rev. Adam Sedgwick -- the president of the English geological society, taught him. His teachers were the best available.

Panel 3. There is no doubt Darwin was an outstanding botanist for his time -- but he was trained as a geologist, and his botany credentials came from his collecting, and later from his direct observations. During this time he always claimed to be a geologist. His first monograph, on the formation of coral atolls, was a geology piece.

Panel 4. It is correct that Darwin sailed aboard H.M.S. Beagle. It is incorrect in suggesting that he did so in order to change careers. He thought until shortly before his return, five years later, that he'd be a preacher. Darwin had no ulterior motives that any honest person ever determined.

Panel 5. No one regarded Darwin as a "fox of a man," in any use of the word "fox." Darwin was noted by all who knew him as an extreme gentleman, a loving husband, an outstanding father, and a true friend. In short, Darwin was the epitome of what a Victorian Christian would aspire to be. The ship was no dog, either. It was a quality ship of the Queen's fleet, and one with a history of bold discovery.

Panel 6. Darwin was considered a fundamentalist, and a naif, by the sailors. Did Darwin "allow his Christianity to slip?" Well, he did have a knock-down, drag-out, almost-severing-the-relationship argument with Capt. Robert FitzRoy. FitzRoy defended slavery as Bible-given. Darwin said slavery was evil. Is that "allowing one's Christianity to slip?" I think Mr. Hart has engaged in a bit of blasphemy there, at least for modern Christians. We do not regard defense of slavery as appropriate, or Christian.

Panel 7. Darwin "concocted" no theory at sea. Famously, he took 13 specimens of bird from 13 separate islands in the Galapagos Archipelago, shipping them back to England as 13 different species, probably from different genera. In was in March 1837, a few months after his return to England that Darwin happened to run into one of the ornithologists from the British Museum, who off-handedly noted that each of the 13 specimens had been determined to be a finch, despite the wide variation in the morphology. Darwin was astounded, he wrote at the time, and this generated some thinking about all the observations he had made. Two months later, in May 1837, Darwin opened a set of journals which became the foundation for the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution was formed on land, after careful, sober consideration of all the evidence Darwin had collected from God's creation. Had Darwin claimed it came to him as a bolt from the blue, or in a dream, or while he prayed, he'd be St. Charles today, I would wager.

Panel 8. Oh, bother. Of course, Darwin's work suggests humans are descended from a common ancestor with apes, and not "up from monkeys." But of course, that's not what Johnny Hart intends. He's aiming at the unfounded, unjustified claim of many religionists that Darwin intended to unfetter human moral code, to allow humans to "act like animals." Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact Darwin noted that a moral code much like the "golden rule" was necessary, and a survival advantage, for social species like humans, in chapter five of Descent of Man. (He also suggested that such a code might be selected for, by nature, which would trouble more than a few religionists who are unfamiliar with their own churches' beliefs, I'm sure.)

But there is also this: Hart assumes that there is nothing blessed in the brave defense the sparrow mother makes of her chicks, or her eggs, against the raven, the hawk, the fox and the snake. The sorts of evil skullduggery Hart fears rarely occurs in lower animals -- Twain wrote at length about the morality of other animals, noting that their superior moral sense suggests that humans did indeed descend from them, losing morality in the descent. Hart slams monkeys without justification, and wholly without evidence.

No monkey ever told a lie about Johnny Hart. He should return the favor.

And for Christians everywhere who have heads and hearts, please accept my disavowal of Johnny Hart's unjustified screed.

He's wrong in eight out of eight panels of the cartoon. That's more wrong than one could be randomly. Such error smacks of evil, of intelligent design . . . has anyone called this to Hart's attention, I wonder?

(Intelligent design, by the way, is just the latest golden calf to afflict the followers of the God of Abraham. We might get farther making that note, in those terms, than in any other persuasive analogy.)

#23621: Ken Cope — 05/01  at  07:24 PM
Ed, that's science writing.

With that much blatant dishonesty in Hart's strip, so widely distributed, shouldn't Hart anticipate an invitation to become a Fellow at Disco?

#23624: — 05/01  at  08:31 PM
And here was me thinking Johnny Hart had been dead for years. Am I hallucinating that he did Wizard of Id (oh no! ID!) too? Cause I know that's changed hands since I was younger, so I assumed he'd retired or had gone to meet the big eraser in the sky.

As far as this strip goes, jinkies. Is this really the same guy who made some of the best jokes about clams ever (okay, maybe not). And am I the only one thinking his art has actually gotten worse?

And a quick hoorah for Calvin and Hobbes, best comic ever and my introduction to the idea of the elect and the reprobate.

#23625: — 05/01  at  08:34 PM
From today's Star Tribune, some good news:

A Proctor High School science educator was recognized as Minnesota's Teacher of the Year today during a celebration in Brooklyn Park.

Glen Sorenson was honored by the teachers' union Education Minnesota. He has taught in the Proctor school district for most of his 28-year career.

It's not unusual for students in his classes to examine road kill, trudge through a nearby creek or watch him dissect a recently deceased farm animal, the group said.

I can just imagine P.Z.'s eyes tearing up now...

#23626: — 05/01  at  08:57 PM
Never mind, just wiki'd Hart, and it turns out he still writes Wizard of ID, meaning that I have lost all respect for what may have once been his talent. His stablehands are talking about robots now, ferchristssake.

Must remember to write my hometown paper and request they cancel WoID post haste. Replace it with PvP, maybe.

Trackback: Yeah, But What About The Family Circus? Tracked on: The World Wide Rant - v3.0 (63.247.140.66) at 2005 05 01 21:40:07
Hey, do you folks remember when Johnny Hart's comic strip "B.C." was funny? I don't either. That bit of unenlightened refrigerator art found at Pharyngula....

Trackback: B.C. = Blind Creationist Tracked on: PhaWRONGula (72.9.234.70) at 2005 05 01 21:41:55
Now, listen to my story of the man, Charles D. He studied with the best for a general degree To end up a preacher, maybe in a year or two, But differences in finches gave him better things to do! Learn, that is. Find out. Understand!

Trackback: Yellow and Pink Tracked on: Into Good and Evil (72.9.234.70) at 2005 05 01 22:14:05
This series is better.

#23632: Nullifidian — 05/01  at  10:38 PM
PZ, if you'd like some relief, I've blogged my response to Hart's nonsense here:

http://cogitoergosumatheos.blogspot.com/2005/05/my-response-to-johnny-hart.html

#23635: judgeMC — 05/01  at  11:17 PM
What I do not understand is why creationist persist in trying to discredit just Darwin. My understanding is that he was not the only person during his time to research the the Theory of Evolution. So it's not like if Darwin never existed the Theory would not exist.

#23652: Jeremy Henty — 05/02  at  06:34 AM
This is so wierd. I was a tremendous BC. fan as a kid. The thing is, I actually noticed the creationist content and assumed it was just a joke! In one strip Peter attempts to convince (I think) B.C. that he came from an ape because he doesn't have a tail: "See, you are no longer an ape. Apes have tails!". In another strip Peter ridicules the idea of evolution but gives up in disgust when he sees Grog (who is an utter missing link). I just thought "ha, ha he's mocking the silly ideas of people on both sides of the debate who don't actually understand evolution".

Now I discover Hart wasn't mocking stupidity, but regurgitating it.

I blame my parents. Mum was a botanist and Dad studied animal behaviour (under the great Tinbergen, actually). Nothing in my childhood prepared me for people who were clueless about biology.