Prickly City is a daily comic strip drawn by Scott Stantis , the conservative editorial cartoonist for the Birmingham News , and distributed through Universal Press Syndicate . The cartoon is set in the American Southwest and details the adventures of Carmen, a young African American girl in pigtails, and a coyote pup named Winslow. The strip is frequently — though not always — politically-oriented.
The cartoon's name is a reference to the many prickly pear cacti in the Southwest.
The strip is heavily influenced by Calvin and Hobbes, though with some key differences beyond its political leaning. While Hobbes is seen simply as a toy to all adults, Winslow interacts freely with people. In Prickly City, usually only Winslow and Carmen are ever seen in the frames. Almost everyone else is either outside of the frames or shown from the waist down.
Characters
Carmen is a feisty, if somewhat naive, political conservative and a Republican.
Winslow, named for the town of Winslow, Arizona, is a liberal with political aspirations and often acts patronizing and condescending. Carmen is continuously frustrated by Winslow's assumption that she should be a liberal feminist.
As of 2005, Dio, a chameleon named for Diogenes the Cynic, began appearing as a campaign director for Winslow.
Controversies
When the cartoon debuted in the Birmingham News, it displaced Mary Worth on the comics page. Protests from Mary Worth' fans restored Worth to the comics page and Prickly City was moved to the editorial page.
A prank was played on Stantis and his readers when a fictitious website mentioned in Prickly City was later registered by a bestiality porn site.
The Chicago Tribune refused to run the February 7, 2005 strip, which inaccurately quoted Ted Kennedy.
Less than two months later the Seattle Times did the same for a series of strips about the Terri Schiavo case. On March 28, the series began with a scene of Carmen upset, after watching her team lose a tournament game on television. Winslow offers to "end her agony" by taking away her food. The strip scheduled for publication on March 31 illustrates the kind of comments that generated the controversy:
- Carmen: Stop denying me food, Winslow!
- Winslow: I'm doing it to stop your suffering, Carmen. Besides, suicide and euthanasia are cool now. Hunter Thompson, Million Dollar Baby. It's all the rage.
- Carmen: But my parents want to take care of me. They love me and don't want me starved to death!
- Winslow: Well, don't come whining to me because you're not a cool dead person.
External links
