CANDORVILLE DROPS THE BALL ON TRAYVON

"CANDORVILLE" A SYNDICATED COMIC STRIP CONCERNING THE LIFE AND MISFORTUNES OF A STRUGGLING AFRICAN-AMERICAN "JOURNALIST" HAS IN THE LAST COUPLE DAYS JUMPED INTO THE TRAYVON MARTIN AFFAIR.

"Candorville" has as its main character one Lamont, who has a thug "buddy" named Clyde (who is always stealing Lamont's stuff) and an hispanic female platonic friend who is always saying "dios mio". (But the author of the strip isn't racist because he's African-American. Right.)

Several times over the life of the strip, Lamont has had dreams in which he shares a subway ride with recently deceased public figures. After the author has made his point, the deceased gets off at his or her "stop" and Lamont continues on back to the real world. This week it's Trayvon Martin's turn to ride the dream train with Lamont.

The writer of the strip has Lamont telling Trayvon that evryone is digging up dirt on him so that nobody will believe he was just an innocent young sweet-pea who was defending himself from a brutish white man. 

To be fair, comic strips are drawn at least four weeks before publication. But this raises a question. This strip was drawn a month ago, before anyone outside of Sanford Florida ever even HEARD of this Trayvon kid.  The notion of a poor little scared 12-year-old trying to fend off a murderous racist has been blown out of the water. How did Candorville's creator know this would become a national news story a month ago, when it wasn't?

And then, when the narrative espoused by the strip has been discredited, the author just lets it run?  When Garry Trudeau is faced with developments that make him look like an idiot, he pulls the strips and runs "Doonesbury Flashbacks" - AKA old strips - until he has some new material.

"Candorville" however seems to be dedicated to preserving the last vestiges of the old story that a poor little kid carrying a bag of candy was murdered by a deadly hater. Just another attempt at keeping the racial tension high over this case so as to distract us from the fact that we for example have a "president" who was caught telling the Russians that all they need to do is wait until he's fooled we the idiot people into re-electing him, and then he'd be free to give them the American store.

Unfortunately, it won't work this time. Just to be candid about it.