Category Archives: sports

Fade to Wack

Charles
April 20, 2013 at 4:53 am
…So where did we go this week? Well, Les dithered around uselessly and then started writing his script in the most mundane fashion imaginable. I can't believe Batiuk is actually going to do this. Never mind that he's going to show Les writing this script, but what he's going to have Les writing is godawful.

Not to mention improperly formatted.

Everybody can relate to the illness and loss of a close friend or loved one. And Batiuk did a creditable job of telling "Lisa's story" the first time around. Readers were moved; at least the ones who didn't object to such depressing content in the comics section. But TB, through his avatar Les, has spent the last five and a half years rehashing this story over and over again, as a book and then a movie, and Lisa's story has become All About Les. The book was a success, and adoring fans lined up for their signed copies. Then Hollywood sends him a fat check and lets him write the screenplay, despite his complete lack of screenwriting experience. All the while, Les carries on like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. After a week of dragging his heels, today the Delicate Genius can bask in the afterglow of having written a trite and stilted line of dialogue.

Does the "home run" fantasy indicate that what he's just written is the last scene? Doesn't the story end with Lisa dying?

31 Comments

Filed under Cindy, Les, Lisa, Lisa's Story, sports

Screen Pass

davidorth
April 13, 2013 at 2:07 pm
Ooh, I got a leaked scene Les is working on! Let's take a look!

Int: Les and Lisa's apartment above the pizza place
(Lisa is checking her self in the mirror after the football tackle thing after she landed on her chest. Her handsome husband is in the other room, saying funny, witty things about stuff)…

Guess that leftover pizza did the trick! Les finally begins crafting a screenplay which so far happens to read very much like davidorth's "leaked scene".

31 Comments

Filed under football, Funky, Les, Lisa, Lisa's Story, photo album corners, sports, tiny hands

Hacking Away

Please join me in sending thoughts and prayers to those affected by the horrific and senseless terror bombings in Boston.

—TFHackett

Louder
April 13, 2013 at 11:44 am
Really, studios have a whole host of writers to "help" idiots like Less pull their heads our of their asses.

…and it's certain that Les could use some help, though he won't find any at Montoni's. Please tell me that Mister Stuck-Up-a-Rope-in-Gym-Class isn't weakly employing a sports metaphor, two sports metaphors in fact. "Seeing the stitches on the fast ball"? Well, for starters, "fast ball" in a baseball context is usually one word…and the last fastball that Les saw almost left him with stitches.

34 Comments

Filed under Funky, Les, Montoni's, pizza, sports, writer's block, writing

Basket Boink

A couple questions: we know that Bull coaches the girls' basketball team, and is Westview's athletic director. But what class is he teaching here? Have we ever seen him in front of a classroom? Maybe he's been pressed into service to cover for one of the teachers who've been let go? And why is he holding a putter?

30 Comments

Filed under basketball, Bull, chullo, Cody and Owen, Mallory, random students, sports, Westview High School

Irrepara-Bull

I will pass along to Coach "Bull" Bushka something that one of my own high school (music) teachers told me:

"Hey, when yer playin' pocket pool, keep yer eye on the ref, he's a real jerkoff!"

"How are Summer Keisha and doing at Kent?" As of today…3-24.

23 Comments

Filed under basketball, Bull, Cayla, Keisha, Kent State, Les, Linda, sports, Westview High School

Buckets of Lame

Linda is on a roll this week, isn't she, folks? Apparently, since Sum' Mo' and Special K moved up to Kent State (currently 3-23), the Lady Scapegoats have reverted to their own losing ways. Linda comes out with yet another idiotic idiom that no one's ever used. Cayla gamely provides the straight line here, trying to make sense of what Linda means by "empty the bucket time".  I was kinda hoping she meant the old Harlem Globetrotters bit…now that's funny!

24 Comments

Filed under basketball, Cayla, Les, Linda, sports, traveling green shirt, Westview High School

…Said Nobody, Anywhere, Ever

Charles
February 26, 2013 at 7:27 pm
…in contrast to Les, [Linda's] appearances don't really do anything. At least with Les you have this often hilarious negative reaction. With Linda, it's much more tiresome, with the primary reaction usually being boredom.

Holy Toledo, am I starting to hate, hate this comic strip. Having failed to get laughs yesterday with a stroke gag, Batiuk ratchets up the level of discomfort considerably  by equating the away team's "good state of mind" and competitive spirit with… hemorrhagic fever?

29 Comments

Filed under basketball, Cayla, Les, Linda, sports, traveling green shirt, Westview High School

Stroke-a-Bull

OK, two things: Fred's stroke took place six weeks ago. In "strip time", it's probably been even longer, as he's recuperated sufficiently to move back home. So Fred's stroke should be news to no one. Yet Cayla blankly asks "Where's Ann tonight?" Linda doesn't even take her eyes off the court to answer. "Ann's husband…you know, Fred? Fred Fairgood? The former principal of the high school where you work? Your husband's former colleague? Fred? Had a stroke." Batiuk tops off this clunky dialogue parfait with a delicious dollop of stroke humor: "I always thought my ineffectual, incoherent, useless husband would be rendered even more ineffectual, incoherent, and useless by a stroke, and sooner rather than later."

25 Comments

Filed under basketball, Cayla, Les, Linda, sports