I've been getting an unusual amount of hate mail lately. I consider that a good sign for the most part, but I still have to wonder, who are these people? What do they look like? Who has the time to seek out the email address of a cartoonist, just to harangue him? One person in particular has sent me a few emails expressing how much he despises F Minus.
"You aren't funny...at all."
"All of the other comic strips are hilarious, then yours just wrecks it. Completely."
"I feel like closing the paper after reading your pathetic excuse of a comic."
"YOU MAKE ME WANT TO STOP READING THE COMICS ALTOGETHER"
His extraordinary anger over my little comic strip intrigued me. I decided to to a quick search for his email address and I discovered his Facebook profile.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... The Face of Hate. 
Through his profile I learned that he has managed to wrangle himself seventeen online "friends" despite his abrasive disposition.
But I shouldn't be too hard on him. He clearly leads a difficult life, apparently in the frozen tundra, where he was forced to kill a large rodent and fashion the pelt into a crude hat for warmth.
I don't think I will continue to seek out these hate-mail writers after this experience. My dreams are already haunted by those vacant eyes and pointed snout. I've learned my lesson.
UPDATE: It turns out one of the "17 friends" is the cousin of a friend of mine, and had this to say about the hater:
"I barely know the kid. He was in my speech class and hung around the emo/goth/kids-who-wear-black group. All of his speeches were on random, less-important wars or something... like Franco-Prussian or ones that you don't normally hear about. He was also very nervous up there. I read the blog... am I really only one of his 17 friends?"
Sounds like he's down to sixteen, I'm afraid.
10 comments:
oh tony! nice work.
i love your comic strips... in fact, your artistic style and clever use of dry sarcasm fills a large void in the comic book world.
keep up the great work! :D
I can't decide which I like more--the F Minus comic strip or the blog. Both make me laugh out loud every day.
I have seen the face of hate, and it looks like some punk teenager. I wish he'd stay off my lawn. Shaking my fist just isn't helping.
Tony,
I love f-minus; your concise wit produces an elegance rarely seen anywhere the newspaper.
But the hate mail is even better. If this guy could only improve his style, we would have a consistent supply of poorly formed criticism. Someday his ranting could even rival such classics as: ‘book smarts vs. stupid smarts’ and that conspiracy one from last May.
Please encourage this guy: make him think that is opinions are interesting to other people.
Thanks for all the laughs,
SB
I'll admit F-minus is hit and miss for me (about 2-to-1 ratio), but when it hits, it's better than anything else out there on paper or print.
If F Minus get this much hate mail, I shudder to think of what the Marmaduke inbox must look like.
You know what Tony? You have to work way harder than most cartoonists out there. You don't stretch your gags out over a week like Dilbert. With the exception of perhaps world's worst grandpa, you don't rely on redundant cliches like Garfield finding some new way to steal food. You're coming up with new stuff every day, and that's great in itself.
Well, I must say I was at first unsure of your strip...but I love comics so I gave it a try. Within a few strips, I started liking it more and more - and even began to relish the drawing, which at first was one of the reasons I wasn't sure about it. But now that (the drawing) - esp. the expressions you give to the characters - is one of my favorite parts. You're one of my top five or six favs now! Thanks !
I would agree that the only thing better than the f-minus strip is the f-minus blog
That hate mail is funny because when I read F-Minus, it's the ONLY comment that makes me bust up laughing. All the OTHERS make me wanna stop reading comics! haha
You're so awesome!!
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