Example of how the teahadists insinuate themselves in media (Nathan Cooper, trojan horse cartoonist)

[Pab Sungenis]

Over at the main blog of my comic syndicate there's an article about Nathan Cooper's comic strip "In The Sticks."

Universal Uclick, the company formerly known as Universal Press Syndicate and a division of Andrews McMeel Universal, really pushed "In The Sticks" hard. As it was going through the development process they had its creator, Nathan Cooper, blog about the experience. It got a major push on the front page of the GoComics.com site and the GoComics Twitter account. It got written up in major comics blogs. Here was the initial blurb about the strip:

"In the Sticks" is silly, absurd, smart and LOL funny. It's an affable strip about an ex-golf professional who's inherited a nearly bankrupt golf club populated by three very odd animals who (usually) try to help him make it work.

Sounds like fun, huh? A premise that hasn't been used before. Likeable characters, and just enough weirdness to make it fit in on your typical comics page.

So, what happened? Once "In The Sticks" was established and had been signed up to papers, suddenly Nathan Cooper revealed his true intentions. Like a Scooby Doo villain ripping off the rubber mask, he revealed the true face of his strip on April 12 with this dialogue in his first panel:

Holy Pelosi! Look at all these taxes! I can't afford this!

A few days later (4/17), one of his characters has been told that his entire paycheck has been confiscated in taxes, and all he gets from visiting his Senator's office is an offer of an "Obama For Hope" button in exchange for a donation to the "Deficit Reduction Fund."

Finally, today, I could take no more. We find our intrepid hero burying all of his worldly possessions, including his High School Yearbook and Netflix receipts, to keep them away from evil Census takers. That was when I decided to go find out WTF was going on with the hot new strip my syndicate had gone out of their way to package.

At the main GoComics blog was an interview with Cooper, where he said that he "polled the strip's characters and a majority of them wish they could have been the one shot in the face by Dick Cheney while duck hunting," played a game of word association where his response to "Sarah Palin" was "future President" and to "Hillary Clinton" was "Rodham? Damn near killed 'em!," and confessed that he jogs while listening to Rush Limbaugh.

That's right. It's another teabagger screed strip. It's "Mallard Fillmore" but with something approaching traditional punchlines. It's "State Of The Union" but even further right wing. And thanks to the best trojan horse job I've ever seen in this business, it's now on your local funny page because some poor schmuck thought he was signing a strip about golf.

This is how the teahadists took over media here in America: they billed themselves as something they weren't and once they had insinuated themselves they revealed their true nature. Fox positioned itself as "balanced" but once it had reached critical mass it dropped any pretense. Conservative talk hosts got stations by claiming to be catering to an "underserved market" but quickly proved that the right wing was anything but. Now we have right-wing propaganda invading our comics pages not by selling an overtly political strip like "Doonesbury" or "Prickly City," but by signing up papers with an inoffensive gag strip then abruptly changing gears.

We need to start calling out these trojan horses. Make sure your local editors know what the strips they've signed are really about. Let advertisers know what the shows their ads are supporting are really promoting. And maybe considering getting a few trojan horses of our own.