Candorville
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Candorville is a controversial syndicated newspaper comic strip written and illustrated by Darrin Bell, a former editorial cartoonist, and the only African-American cartoonist to ever have two different comic strips in syndication concurrently. Candorville was launched in September of 2003, and features young Black and Latino characters trying to make their dreams come true in the Inner City. Although the humor seems to have universal/mainstream appeal, Candorville presents social and political commentary, and in that respect it is similar to Doonesbury, Bloom County, The Boondocks and La Cucaracha. When Candorville made its Washington Post debut, the Post mistakenly identified the comic as conservative and right wing.
Candorville grew out of a comic strip called Lemont Brown, which appeared in the student newspaper of UC Berkeley, "The Daily Californian," from 1993 to 2003. It still appears in the Daily Californian under its new title, "Candorville," and is that newspaper's longest-running comic strip in history. During college, Bell also created editorial cartoons for the Daily Californian, and became one of the youngest freelance cartoonists to ever work regularly for the Los Angeles Times, and several other newspapers. Darrin Bell also illustrates the syndicated comic strip Rudy Park, which is syndicated by United Media to 80 newspapers and websites. Candorville appears in most of America's largest newspapers. It appears in Spanish language newspapers where it is translated by the author's wife, Laura Bustamante. In the San Francisco Chronicle, Candorville appears on the opinion page on Mondays.
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[edit] Main characters
- Lemont Brown is the main character. A talented young Black writer, Lemont began regularly submitting articles to The New Yorker, and was regularly rejected in humiliating fashion. After many months of his friend Susan Garcia suggesting Lemont take control of his life, he decided to stop being rejected and instead started his own blog. Lemont works at Pigville Pork Burgers where George W. Bush once held a televised town hall meeting (in which Lemont humiliated himself while trying to ask a tough question). In a notable story-line, Lemont interviewed a Hurricane Katrina survivor for his blog. Lemont is thoughtful, responsible, clever, sarcastic, and he cares both about the world and about his small circle of friends, whom he's known all his life. Lemont, like many in Generation X, was abandoned by his father as a child but managed to grow up into a decent, hard-working man.
- Susan Garcia is Lemont's best friend. An upwardly-mobile Latina who works as a top executive at an advertising agency, Susan is ambitious, straight-forward, and maybe a little too wrapped up in herself. She is constantly frustrated that Lemont does not seem to know how to make his dream a reality, as she did. She has a sister who changed her name from Esperanza to Hope in order to appear to be Anglo instead of Mexican. Susan has known Lemont all her life and they have been platonic friends, but they seem to have deeper romantic feelings for one another that neither one will acknowledge. When Lemont frustrates her, she occasionally lapses into Spanish, like Ricky Ricardo. Susan's nemesis is her assistant at work, Dick Fink, who seems to sabotage her and obviously wants her job. Her clueless and ethically-challenged boss is Mr. Fitzhugh (possibly an homage to the philosopher George Fitzhugh who argued in favor of slavery as the natural and necessary state of Black people). Mr. Fitzhugh often makes small changes to Susan's advertising campaigns, to make them more dishonest. He once wore a t-shirt to work that said "We invaded Iraq and all I got was this lousy $25 million contract."
- Clyde, (also known as C-Dog) is Lemont's foil. The yin to Lemont's yang. Like Lemont, Clyde grew up in a broken home. But Clyde is irresponsible, lazy, and he blames everyone else for his own shortcomings. He seems to purposely validate every stereotype about Black men, for which Lemont regularly scolds him. He seems stupid at times, but other times it seems as if his "stupidity" is an act he puts on just to thumb his nose to the world. Clyde dresses and acts like a thug, and very well may be one. But the only time he's been seen stealing so far, it has been from Lemont. He gets caught, but perhaps it's because he wants to get caught. He castigates Lemont for "acting White" whenever Lemont reads a book or crosses the street at a crosswalk, and he jealously guards his thuggish street reputation. He once crossed the street at a crosswalk, for which his other friends called him a sellout. To get back in their good graces, C-Dog put a recliner in the middle of a busy street and went to sleep on it during rush hour, for which he was sent to jail. C-Dog is an aspiring rapper, and is unemployed. He has an illegitimate business selling fake Botox injections out of his trenchcoat in a dark alley. Curiously, months after C-Dog began that business, several real-life incidents occurred where women died after receiving fake Botox injections.
[edit] Supporting characters
- Reverend Wilfred is a formerly-liberal Democratic reverend in the mold of Al Sharpton, but after receiving almost $1 million from the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, the good Reverend suddenly did a 180 and became an ultra-conservative Bush supporter who uses his pulpit to preach against the evils of liberalism.
- Bus Stop Guy is a neocon who goes through great logical contortions to rationalize current events, such as the pushback against stem-cell research, the Iraq War, driving an SUV, the pushback against gay marriage, and many other issues.
- Homeless Dudes often appear living in alleys, cardboard boxes and on the sidewalks. They discuss the economy, mostly, and are usually ignored by everyone, including the compassionate main characters Lemont and Susan.
- Past and Future Lemont Lemont is occasionally visited in his dreams by both past and future versions of himself. One version, who visits him from the past, is six or seven years old. The other version is 70-80 years old and speaks very cryptically. Once, before interviewing the Hurricane Katrina victim, Lemont was visited by himself from one week later, warning him to do something that he ended up not doing. A few times, the strip has been set in 1982 and past Lemont is the main character, who receives visits from present Lemont warning him to stay away from girls, and telling him to buy only certain comic books which will appreciate in value by the present day.
- Mainstream Media Guy is a big, grinning, football jersey-wearing embodiment of the oblivious mainstream media. He first appeared in August, 2006. Lemont runs into MSM guy at the bus stop every once in a while, and the MSM guy shouts trivial news items to him, while ignoring important events.
- Al Qaeda's #2 Man is a walking, dismembered corpse who keeps getting blown up, coincidentally every time President Bush or the GOP are scoring badly in opinion polls.
[edit] Cartoon collections
As of 2006, two collections of the strip have been published in book form.
- Candorville: Thank God for Culture Clash (2005)
- Another Stereotype Bites the Dust: a Candorville Collection (2006)
