Mallard Fillmore/YMMV


 * Anvilicious: It's rare to find a strip that doesn't fit this trope.
 * Confirmation Bias: A standard of political strips.
 * Don't Shoot the Message: To some conservatives (and even some centrists), Tinsley's viewpoints are actually quite reasonable, but his method of delivery tends to distort them so horribly that they despise the strip anyway.
 * Dude Not Funny: It's thankfully rare, but Tinsley occasionally goes beyond being merely annoying or tasteless and makes some jibes (they really can't be called "jokes") that will have you saying "What the Hell Hero" if you like him and howling for his blood if you don't. He once, for example, basically called California Senator Barbara Boxer a neo-segregationist on zero evidence. Similarly, he made an innuendo (hell, it was more of a blatant declaration) that Barack Obama wanted to euthanize the elderly. The fact that Sarah Palin had already made that accusation was no excuse. Then there was the time King Features decided to support Breast Cancer research by asking all of their participating strips to color their strips pink on Sunday. Most did, a few didn't, My Cage satirized the silliness of the idea...and Mallard Fillmore insulted breast cancer patients. Because there is no fairness in the universe, My Cage was cancelled a week later yet Mallard Fillmore continues to run.
 * Snark Bait: Like many newspaper strips of late, even this comic has a snark blog.
 * The Comics Curmudgeon said of Mallard Fillmore: "I think papers carry this strip for “balance”, i.e., to shut up the Doonesbury critics so they can keep it on the comics page. A nice little irony for Mallard’s author."
 * There's been so much negativity and vitriol whenever the comic is discussed on The Comics Curmudgeon that it is now taboo to talk about it - one of the few strips to have a blanket ban.
 * Unfortunate Implications: Tinsley did not take kindly to a parody strip done for Jon Stewart's America the Book. He responded by dedicating several actual strips to complaining about Stewart "stealing" his work, culminating with a rather disturbing Jewish caricature of Stewart proclaiming himself a pedophile. Tinsley (who apparently does not grasp the idea of "satire") did not get the overall joke, as the strip was on a page with other comic parodies, including a similar mocking of rival strip Doonesbury (along the same lines as its too political and unfunny) and even Peanuts (which, of course, was never a political strip). Incidentally, the Fillmore parody wasn't drawn or written by Stewart himself, but by Maria Schneider (a cartoonist who also writes for The Onion).
 * Tinsley's response to the controversy? "honestly, I didn't even know Jon Stewart was Jewish."
 * Tinsley's issue wasn't so much that his comic was parodied by Stewart but rather that Stewart didn't subsequently invite him on The Daily Show like other famous conservatives. Which naturally justifies insinuating him to be a pedophile.
 * Stephen Colbert responded to Tinsley's attack of Stewart by joking that the caricature may have been "clip art from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion".