Letters

CHEW ON THIS
Re: "Red Meat" by Max Cannon, appearing weekly

Attentive readers will recall that we recently asked if anyone likes the comic strip "Red Meat." The question arose after we printed the same strip two weeks in a row. Nobody complained, and I wondered if anyone cared.

Just as we hoped, we've been inundated with mail from readers who either love the strip or think it's stupid and want it replaced. An even larger number of letters came from folks who want us to give young St. Petersburg cartoonist Josh Sullivan the space instead. (Ain't e-mail chains great? Check him out yourself at www.joshcomics.com.)

The jury's still out. Maybe we'll find room for additional comics sometime soon. Meanwhile, here's a sampling of your letters. Thanks for all of them.

—Jim Harper

As a prisoner I would like to beg you to please keep "Red Meat" as part of the Weekly Planet. You see, daily I must endure tasteless "food," showering with seven or eight men at a time, striped clothing, and worst of all — lack of women! So there is very little for me to smile about. Yet during the 10 seconds it normally takes me to read "Red Meat," I can actually forget, for a moment, my bleak surroundings. And when I share "Red Meat" with my fellow thieves, rapists and murderers, the male bonding process occurs as we all laugh in sheer delight! Yes, "Red Meat" has a solid fan base in the Florida clink. My remaining year in prison can be happy or sad — it's up to you, Weekly Planet!

—Matthew V Kaduthodil DC #252654

Desoto Correctional Institution, Arcadia

I have been reading that comic each week for over a year now. I keep hoping one day I'll actually "get it." It hasn't happened yet, but I keep trying!

I guess it's kind of like when you're driving down the highway and you happen upon a car accident. You try your best not to look at the accident as you drive past but it's almost like you can't help yourself. Your attention is morbidly drawn to it. That's what "Red Meat" is like.

—Karen Mueller Bryson
Playwright and novelist
Via e-mail

It's hard for me to say exactly what makes "Red Meat" funny. (If I knew exactly what made a strip funny or unfunny, I'd try my own hand at cartooning.) In general, I enjoy the absurdist, often non-sequitur humor of "Red Meat"; it makes me laugh, which is more than I can say for most of the mainstream strips out there today. Though it's obviously put together with templates rather than being drawn anew each time, the drawing style is clean and attractive (I like "The City," but it took me a while to warm up to its grotesque style).

—Jeff Lee
via e-mail

Yes, I'm a fan of "Red Meat." And yes, I noticed the recent repetition. I didn't complain because I didn't figure it would make any difference if I did. Besides, everybody makes mistakes, and even the big dailies don't seem to proofread — there are constantly missing words, misused homonyms (e.g., "their" appears in print when the writer meant "there") and poor grammar in the printed and online dailies. The Weekly Planet actually seems to make fewer errors than most, perhaps because it's only published weekly.

—Susan Dunlevy
Tampa

Perish the thought of ruining my Atkins-esque comic diet by carving the "Red Meat" from your rag! Where else can one go to get really sick, twisted, and utterly appropriate for me humor? Yes, "Tom Tomorrow," and "Derf" (which I've noticed is missing!!!) do serve up solid side dishes of sarcasm, but not with the panache of the Red Meat Platter. (I'm getting hungry; need to go whack off a chunk of "Red Meat" and grill it!)

—Brent Yaciw
Wesley Chapel

"Red Meat:" I could take it or leave it but rarely does it warrant a smirk from me, which is pretty sad considering my taste for humor that is twisted, witty and droll.

—Marty Wortman
via e-mail

You remind us that you ran the same "Red Meat" strip two weeks in a row and wonder if anyone noticed. I did, but I'm sure you could find some better use for the space. "Red Meat" is not really very good, and that's my 2 cents worth.

—Joe Redmond
via e-mail

here's a vicious rumour that you're looking to phase out Max Cannon's "Red Meat" in favor of something stranger. And what could be stranger than a weekly rambling from Tampa Bay's very own Clay Bennett wannabe, Josh Sullivan?

I'm sure you're familiar with his work as he won an award from your organization in the last round of Best of the Bay. He's no Mike Diana and, considering how long you would all spend in jail if he was, that's a very good thing.

Josh's odd mixture of fun, frivolity and fucking weirdness would make for some furious reading. Give the lad a chance.

—Jules Allen (no relation to Sullivan)
St. Petersburg

I am a longtime reader of Weekly Planet and a frequent admirer of the cartoon strip "Red Meat."

I noticed immediately that the same strip appeared in two consecutive issues. Of the many things about your editor's note that concerns me, the first is your being led to believe that because "no one complained … nobody reads 'Red Meat.'" What would you have readers do, deluge your office with angry demands that you immediately publish a special edition featuring the missing strip? I know mistakes happen and that crying over them doesn't make them unhappen. Some of us, however, might have enjoyed seeing the space you wasted in your "From the Editor" piece used instead to run the missing strip, along with an apology or at least an acknowledgment of the error.

Instead, we find out that it really wasn't an error, exactly. It was just that, well, nobody at your shop actually likes the strip and "nobody on the staff reads it either." Great explanation. I guess we know where you stand regarding editorial responsibility and accountability. It is disturbing enough that Weekly Planet's editor is not enough in touch with the attitude and tone the paper always has been known for that he doesn't see the relevance of "Red Meat" to that ambience. But it is inexcusable, professionally that "nobody on the staff" feels compelled to bother reading any part of the pub's content. Incidentally, your characterizing the strip as a "sick skewering of 'family values'" shows you haven't read it often enough yourself. At least half of the strip's episodes have nothing to do with "family" anything.

—James Seymour
St. Petersburg

This article appears in May 28 – Jun 3, 2003.