Daily Inspiration Quote by Ted Rall

There is a particular kind of cultural failure that feels more incriminating than not liking a thing: trying to like it and coming up empty. Ted Rall’s line is built on that familiar, slightly guilty posture. “Anyway” shrugs off the possibility of a grand argument, signaling that what follows won’t be a formal takedown so much as a weary confession from someone who knows the etiquette of good taste and can’t quite comply.

The target, Jimmy Corrigan, is doing a lot of work here. Chris Ware’s graphic novel has long functioned as a prestige object in comics culture: meticulously designed, emotionally bleak, widely praised. Saying you “couldn’t” like it isn’t just a review; it’s a small act of dissent against the soft coercion of canon formation, the way acclaim can become obligation. Rall frames his resistance as effortful and sincere, which disarms the usual counterattack (“you just don’t get it”) while also implying something sharper: if a reader has to “try” to like an artwork, the artwork may be asking for a kind of submission rather than offering pleasure, insight, or momentum on its own terms.

As a cartoonist, Rall is also speaking from inside the medium, where taste can double as tribal signaling. The understatement is the point. He doesn’t litigate Ware’s craft; he punctures the social script around it. The humor comes from how mild the sentence is compared to the cultural pressure it deflates. It’s an anti-humblebrag: not “I’m above this,” but “I did my homework and still didn’t feel it,” a reminder that even in highbrow comics, affect matters as much as design.