| Mallard Fillmore | |
|---|---|
Title panel for Mallard Fillmore Sunday strips. |
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| Author(s) | Bruce Tinsley |
| Current status / schedule | Running |
| Launch date | May 30, 1994 |
| Syndicate(s) | King Features Syndicate |
| Genre(s) | Political |
Mallard Fillmore is a comic strip written and illustrated by Bruce Tinsley that has been syndicated by King Features Syndicate since May 30, 1994. The strip follows the exploits of its title character, an anthropomorphic green-plumaged duck who works as a politically conservative reporter at fictional television station WFDR in Washington, D.C. Mallard's name is a pun on the name of the 13th president of the United States, Millard Fillmore.
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In 1991, Bruce Tinsley, who was an editorial cartoonist for Charlottesville, Virginia The Daily Progress, was asked to create a cartoon character as a mascot for the newspaper's entertainment page. A duck, which Bruce named "Mallard Fillmore," was accepted, and made his debut in the paper.
Tinsley started sending samples of Mallard Fillmore, then known as The Fillmore File, to newspapers across the country and was eventually picked up by The Washington Times, which began running it in 1992. The strip was later picked up for national syndication by King Features Syndicate, which began distributing it in May 1994.
Mallard Fillmore is the main character in the comic strip. He is a seasoned conservative reporter for fictional television station WFDR-TV in Washington, D.C., which hired him in order to fill its quota for "Amphibious Americans."
Although Mallard is a mallard duck, he is only occasionally shown with a mallard's coloring. Even when the daily strip is printed in color, Mallard generally appears as solid black. He does not exhibit any ducklike behaviour, and the other characters (who are all human) never comment on his species, except in the strip setting up the premise.
Mallard yearns for the "good old days," and views himself as a victimized underdog in a world that is being overrun with political correctness, religious secularism, and hypocrisy. He is often in a state of outrage over the news item of the day, usually involving liberals.
Mallard's politics are very close, if not one and the same, to cartoonist Bruce Tinsley's; as Tinsley told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that "Mallard really is about as close to me as you can get," in an October 2005 interview. Tinsley has used the power of Mallard in personal matters. For instance, after he was arrested for DUI, he attacked the judge in his cartoon and influenced the judge's election defeat.
Although WFDR appears to be a small, local channel, Mallard is still capable of interviewing famous politicians such as Al Gore. Occasionally, he will mention a study done by the "Fillmore Foundation," a think tank which may or may not actually exist in the comic strip, which he presumably heads. Mallard seems to be conscious of the fact that he is a fictional cartoon character, and is capable of "feeling poorly drawn." Mallard is also a bachelor, though in 2002 he had a date with a human woman he met in line at the post office. The date did not go well because he did not agree with her politics. He appears to be quite fond of Ann Coulter. Mallard did not attend journalism school, a fact repeatedly commented on in the comic, usually as an explanation as to why Mallard does not understand something about the WFDR news priorities.
Other characters from the strip:
In the 2004 book America (The Book), written by the staff of The Daily Show, a parody of Mallard Fillmore appears in a section about political cartoons (which also included parodies of Peanuts and Doonesbury strips):
In the strip's 5–8 July 2005 editions, Tinsley responded to the America (The Book) parody, claiming that Jon Stewart "tried to deceive people into thinking it was a real [Mallard Fillmore strip]" by using the comic's name and a fictitious date.[1]
The 2006 paperback "Teacher's Edition" of America (The Book) further addresses this controversy. On the page with the Mallard strip, Stanley K. Shultz, a college professor hired to correct factual inaccuracies in the book, remarked that "This does not appear to be an authentic 'Fillmore' cartoon, although the authors of this book have captured accurately the strip's level of humor."
On January 4, 2005 a Mallard Fillmore strip was published featuring a television executive whom bloggers accused of being a Jewish caricature that promoted the anti-Semitic stereotype that "Hollywood is run by Jews."[2] The strip did not run in some of its normal venues, such as the Boston Globe. While the main "Mallard" page only shows a week's worth of cartoons at a time[3], this cartoon is available on Jewish World Review's web site.[4]
The strip's caricature of Jon Stewart, with a long, downwardly pointed nose, was criticized by satirist Stephen Colbert, who, during a December 14, 2006 show, joked that the caricature may have been "clip art from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."[5] Tinsley has since stated about Stewart that "honestly, I didn't even know he was Jewish."[6]
| Title | Publication Date | ISBN |
|---|---|---|
| Mallard Fillmore | October 1, 1995 | ISBN 0-8362-0778-5 |
| Mallard Fillmore. ...on the Stump | May 1, 1996 | ISBN 0-8362-1311-4 |
