I’m struggling with guilt over hating today’s strip, but come on. This is just layin’ it on with a trowel. I could maybe allow myself to give TB a pass if not for Summer’s constant smirk. What’s with her face in panel 5 (right)? Looks like she’s planning a heist.
All of us have dealt with the loss of a loved one. In Funkiverse time, it’s 14½ years since her sainted Mom passed away, but thanks to the combination of Les’ prolonged grieving and a seemingly infinite collection of beyond-the-grave videos, Summer feels compelled to go through this ritual year after year. There’s a difference between fond remembrance and…I dunno, insanity.
I can’t wait for Funky’s pilgrimage to Bedside Manor next month.
If you haven’t already…tonight’s your last opportunity to enter the drawing for The Complete Funky Winkerbean Vol. 1! http://sonofstuckfunky.com/sosfs-second-anniversary-giveaway
Something tells me that she’s sick of this shit, but her father will give her more if she doesn’t.
Lio did it better:
Something tells me that she’s sick of this shit, but her father will give her more if she doesn’t.
Actually, I think she’s just as guilty of not getting past Lisa’s death as Les is. Granted, it doesn’t show up as often, but that’s a function of how many more times Les shows up in the strip.
Remember, she was the one to dig out the Lisa tape for Darrin on his 30th birthday, and she dug up one for Les concerning Summer’s senior year, suggesting that she’s the one who religiously keeps track of the tapes and maintains the catalog.
She also wears her hair exactly like her mother did, which wouldn’t be that big a deal, if it wasn’t such an awful, utilitarian style.
didn’t know Summer with no red hoody but have to wonder where the hell is Less more in this Lisa feast
Nice to see Summer has plain white hoodies for weekend wear. So, this is supposed to be touching and sweet, I guess-? However it just seems odd, and Charles has explained why.
Killer post today, TFH. Couldn’t have said it any better than that. I felt exactly the same way about this one: the guilt I felt over hating it was trumped by my disgust over trotting out Dead Lisa’s tired old corpse yet again. Leave it to this guy to find a way to take an innocuous little holiday like Mother’s Day and make it downbeat.
At first glance, though, I thought this was going to be about Summer FINALLY buying a new wardrobe. I guess that’s her weekend outfit. And yeah, what’s up with that weird sidewards glance? Looks like she’s casing the joint. There should be some cornball 1970′s car chase music in the background there, then it’d be perfect.
It’s kind of sad that if TB was a better writer than this could be a sweet little strip of just something summer does to honor and remember her mother.
Thank you, Sourbelly. I was instantly reminded of that Lio strip, which I found a much more effective and poignant way of dealing with a departed parent.
Wouldn’t it be much nicer of Summer to do something for future stepmom Cayla instead, welcoming her into the family and embracing this new chapter of their lives? Ah but I forget, that might make Cayla think she’s equal to the Sainted Dead Lisa, and of course we can’t have that.
I had no problem hating today’s strip. I didn’t even have to think twice about it. Granted, it could have been a sweet strip… but in Batiuk’s hands, it’s just heavy-handed as usual. Flowers on a grave is one thing, but a card next to a picture on a mantel just seems creepy, especially if you factor in the possibility that Cayla will be over at the house later. But if this is how Summer celebrates Mother’s Day, then I will only express my gratitude to Batiuk for not showing us what Les has planned (taking Cayla on a 3-hour walking cemetery tour is my guess).
On the upside, no Les (two weeks straight!), no snarking, no behaving like trolls, no Cory wasting that character’s potential, no Funky, no Roberta, and no Roberta’s husband.
We can’t have everything.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss my loved ones who’ve passed away. I miss them terribly. I always will.
But I prefer to think about the good times I had with them. The reasons why I loved them. The funny times. The silly times. The times we just spent the day together.
What does Summer remember about her mother?
That Lisa died of cancer. That Lisa made videotapes while she was dying of cancer. That Les can’t go for fifteen minutes without mentioning that Lisa, his wife, died of cancer. (Or that she was pregnant with Darin.)
Is that really all she cares to remember? Or the only thing Les will allow them to dwell on?
P5 – looks like she’s got what’s left of Les in the trunk, Lake Erie 35 miles.
Diva: You bring up an interesting point. Since Les made it clear that Cayla -will- be moving into the Taj-MOORE-Hal after their nuptials, one would think Tom would eagerly tackle the subject of Blending the Families.
After all, no matter how mature (ha!) the participants involved are, it’s always a massive adjustment. So much new material he could mine! So many potential, life-based sto-….oh. I forgot. Cayla is just another prop to show off Les’ success. “Roses in December” indeed.
This is going to sound cold , but I would think it would be a silver lining that having a dead parent means not having to pay for cards and gifts on holidays.
I thought the same thing: what about Cayla? She is, after all, someone’s mother too. Once she moves in to Moore Manor, will she object to the constant Lisa tributes and shrines or will she smirk quietly and fetch lemonade for everyone while Lisa drones on in the background through the magic of VHS?
I also had no problem hating this strip. That Lio one was heartbreaking, though.
Some of you folks should sue your moms for somehow conceiving and giving birth to fetuses (you) with no fuckin’ hearts.
Sum’ Mo’ doesn’t dwell on Les’ constant mention of Our Lady of the Perpetual Visitation’s demise at the hands of cancer, or that Mom got knocked up during a quickie with a football jock in a van. Kids do not do that. If any of you do that, I feel sorry that your moms left these scars on your psyches.
We remember our dead in ways that are personal to us, and only as private as we wish. I myself spent a little time this past afternoon in a cemetery where my grandmother, great-grandmother, two great-great-grandmothers, and great-great-great-grandmother are buried. Only one lived in my lifetime, and at that only until I was three, but what very little I remember, and all of what I know from family stories shared time and time again, some of them now written, I celebrate by spending a little time with them, placing flowers and whatnot on their final resting places. And that’s just what I do without the cloak of privacy.
I like to think my collective grandmothers were pleased, and touched me in a personal way, When I left the cemetery, I went to 5:00 Mass at the cemetery’s parish church, where five generations of my family have been members. Afterwards, I spoke with the organist, and told him that my great-great-grandmother’s brother had played the organ in this church, and in fact played at this particular building’s dedication in 1892. He stopped shutting everything down, and reversed the process, and told me this was that same organ – and insisted I sit and play something, a song, a short tune, just a few notes – anything. I did, and two things happened – one, I was filled with an immense stirring, a feeling that I had bridged 120 years in my family’s history, and two, I improvised something that sounded better than anything I had ever played at any time before this.
There is an immense and intense feeling in knowing you have paid a personal homage with which both the honored and the honoring are pleased. I know that, and Summer does, too.
That all said, let me ass that it is quite possible that Sum’ Mo’s white hoodie is as close as she gets to anything dressy for a special occasion.
The contest has closed and the winner, chosen at random, is Rusty! Thank you all for entering. We’ll have another giveaway sometime soon. Stay Funky!
This strip has plenty of mothers, step, single, adoptive, and otherwise (Cayla, Holly, Donald/Donna, Anne Fairgood, Rachel, Becky, Roberta) but Batiuk just drags out dear dead Lisa again instead to remind everyone of how Deep and Daring he is. Just like he dragged out the action in today’s trip to pad seven panels.
“today’s strip,” that is. Sorry Rusty, but better you than the rest of us.
What Summer’s card would say, if Batiuk was remotely honest about the life and death of Saint Lisa:
To my dearest mother
I can’t stand to lie.
Fighitng cancer was hard
So you chose to die.
Thanks for not being here to raise me.
How could anyone hate today’s strip- what with so many ceiling and floor tiles on display?!
My first thought was the Cayla thing that you all have already discussed. Time to welcome her into the fold. My second thought was that if I knew a young girl who was still buying cards for her dead mother 15 years later, I would have to gently suggest if maybe therapy wasn’t in order. And I’m not even trying to be mean.
I don’t think that putting a mother’s day card next to a pic on the mantle is that “creepy”, and I was struggling with guilt about hating the strip as well. Out of context it’s fine, maybe even heartbreaking.
But in context it’s just Tommy trying to wring tears from the audience’s eyes. And I agree with Jimmy, the Lio strip is heartbreaking. And it does so without trying to be maudlin. It just shows us the facts, and we react. The fact that upon clicking the image you get to see this doesn’t help:
[img]http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/39/screenshot20120513at949.png/[/img]
Oh, and thanks for taking one for the team, Rusty.
The image wasn’t loaded properly. http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg39/scaled.php?server=39&filename=screenshot20120513at949.png
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/39/screenshot20120513at949.png/
My antivirus is none too pleased with RiffChick’s links up there. Caveat emptor.
Norman Bates loved his mother, too. I think you all know what I’m getting at.
i would think imageshack would be ok.. sorry :-/
O.B. Dan: it isn’t the content of this specific strip that’s so annoying: it’s the way Lisa is the “go-to” character for cheap “awwwwws”. This is at least the third time this year she’s been trotted out for easy pathos. It’s a constant reminder of a premise that was milked for all it was worth five years ago (and way more than that in strip time). If he carted her out once a year on a holiday or something it wouldn’t be so grating, at least to me. Granted, this wasn’t as stupid, unbelievable and cheap as the video tapes were, but still, it’s overkill.
I think Epicus has hit the nail on the head. Much like the Anonymously Gay Duo, Lisa isn’t even really a character anymore, just a prop used for the purposes of cheap sentiment.
Agreed. Lisa is no more than a sympathy prop and a marketing tool for selling more leftover copies of “Lisa’s Story”. I’m astounded that Batiuk forgot to include the Lisa’s Legacy URL in today’s strip. This strip would have been touching on the first post-time jump Mother’s Day, but now it just looks like an 11th Hour idea that Batiuk wishes he had thought up 5 years ago.
O.B. Dan: As I said, I have no objection to people rememering and mourning lost loved ones. I do so myself.
My objection is that in-strip, we’ve been given zero evidence that Summer does have her own unique, special feelings and memories about Lisa. Just more of this “Remember when I, the cartoonist did that heart-breaking, poignant story that won me so many awards and accolades? Well, you’d better! I’m going to remind you several dozen more times before the year is through!”
Taken on it’s own, this strip would be harmless. Maybe even a bit touching. In context, though, it’s just more evidence of Tom’s pathological need to remind us of that Deep and Meaningful Story of Depth and Meaningfulness.
Ironically, he’s robbing it of all meaning by such mindless repetition.
remembering, even.
It’s kind of sad that if TB was a better writer than this could be a sweet little strip of just something summer does to honor and remember her mother.
He doesn’t even have to be a better writer to do this. He just has to be a genuine, honest one.
Days like these convince me more and more that there is not a single authentic sentiment in this entire comic strip. It’s all basic manipulation. He’s not doing this as a heartfelt tribute to a mother that a girl lost far too early in her life. He’s doing it to remind us all about his prestige arc that gets mentioned in every article that ever addresses his comic strip. He can’t let Les or Summer reconcile Lisa’s death, because if they did, he wouldn’t have a convenient excuse to keep reminding us of her.
So no, OB Dan, I’m sorry, because that was a righteous, heartfelt rant, but in this context it’s misguided. This strip isn’t about Summer’s personal homage to her mother. It’s just a pretext for Batiuk to stroke his ego again.
And so long as we’re on the subject of our mothers’ failures damaging us for life, I’ll just point out one thing that’s always bothered me about the deification of Lisa. She knew months in advance of her death that she was going to die, yet she never did one thing to help her loving husband or very young daughter make the transition to life without her. It’s one thing trying to adjust when your parent dies suddenly, but when you know months in advance, you can make some steps to reconciling what’s going to happen.
And she never did this. In fact, with her insistence in filming all those stupid video tapes (which, in the hands of a better writer, could really drive home just how much these people have lost), she seemed determined to sabotage any attempt by Les or Summer to move on after her death. She wanted them to be beholden to her memory, to insert herself into the context of any stage of their lives. That’s not generous. That’s not love. That’s just supreme self-indulgence.
And it worked. And we’re supposed to celebrate this woman for it.
And I’ll paraphrase a quote from an Amazing Spider Man comic book, of all things: The dead wouldn’t want us to destroy our lives to preserve their memory.
I would have felt more sympathetic toward Slumber if we weren’t CONSTANTLY getting Dead Lisa rammed up our butts. So to me, today was one more piece of dreadful, maudlin schlock.
But that’s not what bothered me today.
I’m just amazed at how much Slumber looks like a dood. Walking in panel one, it looks like
heshe has boobs. But everywhere else, I see a guy. Funny that BatSchmuck can’t fix that.