Chyron HR
January 28, 2013 at 8:36 am
Fred may have trouble articulating himself, but at least he doesn't describe everything as being "hard".
Whereas yesterday, Darin could manage a wisecrack about the effect of the stroke on his father's speech, today the seriousness of Fred's condition seems to finally be sinking in. In fact, Darin's gone to the complete other extreme, writing Fred off as not being "there anymore." Jessica offers a perfectly sensible, sympathetic response; then, because we must have a punchline, follows it up by unnecessarily overstating the fact that she's made an understatement. Forget Owen and Cody: these two are the biggest idiots in Westview.
didn't the Fara Fausit head girl always have stupid hat in past strips??
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What's left to say about these two moronic bores and their ponderous chatter? What is the point of this arc anyway? Was “do a stroke arc” on the Batom Inc. bucket list? Is there some sort of Boy Lisa & Jessica quota that must be filled whether he has any ideas for them or not? If either Davrin or Jessica (or, God willing, both) ever suffers a brain injury, how will anyone know?
Here's an understatement for ya, Blondie: FW blows like a nor'easter and sucks like an Oreck. I've stepped in things more interesting than this arc…today. Bleh.
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Is there any particular reason why Fred hasn't appeared in physical form in any of these strips? It can't possibly be because the sight of Fred falling off the toilet or mumbling incoherently would be insensitive, because there's certainly nothing insensitive about watching peripheral characters discuss these very things with desperate, poorly-developed punchlines.
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OK. I know I rip on FOOB a lot, but Lynn did better. Lynn at least showed us the victim, and kept him a relevant character by letting us see his thought. If Batuik ever gets around to showing Fred, he'll be a bland prop occasionally muttering non sequiturs ('cuz GET IT APHASIA)– one step above Funky's dad, basically.
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Is all this leading up to a book in a few years that confirms it sucks to have a loved on that has a stroke? Because I think most of us have already figured this out.
Besides, "Hi" of Hi and Lois had a stroke six years ago and never recovered. It's hardly ground-breaking.
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Darin: "My Dad was right in front of me…but he wasn't THERE anymore."
Jess: "Hold on there, Buster! Your father most definitely IS still there. And he needs the love and support of his family more than ever! Having difficulties in communicating doesn't mean he's stopped feeling."
Darin: "It doesn't? Huh. Now I feel sort of bad for blowing a raspberry at him before wandering off to the vendos."
Jess: "…*….what."
Darin: "…and I guess Mom was wrong to keep slapping him in the face and screaming that he's trapped her again?"
Jess: "Forget it. Forget I said ANYTHING!"
***************************
As usual, Tom has no compassion OR understanding of anything but a general "People with special needs are ICKY!" attitude I have grown sick of.
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Forget Owen and Cody: these two are the biggest idiots in Westview.
I think this demands a poll, with visual aids. Take the dumbest strip featuring two characters who are regularly seen together and decide which couple is the stupidest.
You'd obviously have Darin and Jessica, as well as Cody and Owen. But there are plenty of other candidates as well.
The two heavyweights Funky and Les.
Crazy and Gross John.
Crazy and Funky.
Les and Cayla.
Les and Bull.
Dinkle and Becky.
Notice how women are underrepresented here. That's not because they're not stupid. They just aren't given as much of a voice to demonstrate their stupidity.
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Inkwell, if the best you can say about the FBOFW stroke storyline is that it's not as bad as the FB stroke storyline… that defines "damning with faint praise."
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Given how inarticulate Jessica is, it's a good thing she isn't, say, a maker of documentaries.
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Wrong again, Batom Inc.! A stroke victim isn't in a coma, as Durren is saying here. You can kiss that award from the National Stroke Association goodbye.
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World record for unnecessary third panels.
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Jessica doesn't bother me too much. Maybe I just feel sorry for her being married to Boy-Lisa.
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Oh, and if the walls of the apartment are celadon, why would they paint an accent wall BLACK?
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I like the new front Batiuk has broken out in his eternal war against "Show, don't tell." From now on we can just watch characters phone each other updates and somberly discuss the events occurring to the other characters in the strip.
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But, Darwin, can he still smirk? For the love of God, CAN HE SMIRK?!?
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"My dad was sitting right there in front of me… but he wasn't there anymore."
" It must be hard seeing him like that… I'm guessing. I wouldn't know, since my dad's 6 feet under the *&#$ing ground!"
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"Sorry, I tried to be empathetic there for a moment. It won't happen again, believe me."
What is wrong with these people? Besides living in Westview, I mean.
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For the love of Cthulhu! Every single damned character in this strip is developing the mentality of Les Moore. Here, Blondie McYellow goes meta in panel 3, in the most uninteresting and unrealistic way imaginable.
“Ya know, Durhey my roomie, I hate to see you this way, all upset about seeing your ailing adoptive dad who adopted you after Les’s dead wife Lisa gave you up, all worried about his coming death and/or vegetative state,” Jess inexplicably said next. “So I don’t think I’ll be tagging along to the hospital any more. Catch a cab back to the dorm, ’kay? Toodle-oo!”
Jess waddles off to the vendos to grab a Twinkie for the road.
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Batiuk can't do funny. He can't do serious. What's left?
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The only subject that Tom Batiuk can write with conviction, passion and interest is Les Moore. I think that's the saddest sentence I've ever written.
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One possible amusement here is that after he's drawn the strip and the balloons, when it's not Les, he uses Dragon Naturally Speaking to fill in the text.
"They were trying to…YAAAAWWWWNNNN…uh. Get my dad to uh. [long pause] Mm. Um. YAAWWWWWNNN. Man I gotta stop doing that. Um. Pronounce some words, but he, um, was um. Uh. [long pause] Damn these two are boring. I'm glad I have them in the 'overturned boat' arc coming up. Anyway. YAAAWWWWNNN. Uh, pronounce some words, but he was having a…a…. [very long pause]. ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…….." [hard drive fills up]
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@ Charles.. how about these other Funky duo's:
Wally & Buddy
Pete & Chien
Pete & Mouch
Pete & Summer
Pete & his right hand
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How about Dead Skunkhead and Uni-arm?
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Batiuk can't do funny. He can't do serious. What's left?
Pitiful.
For my poll proposal, we could have something like a March Madness, where we have four brackets for the different types of idiots.
You'd have a bracket for stone dumb idiots like Owen and Cody.
Another bracket for acts-all-superior-but-really-is-an-idiot like Les or Chien.
Another bracket for idiots who don't act superior but nonetheless don't realize they're idiots. To move from the college basketball over to a World Cup Soccer metaphor, this would be what's called "The Group of Death".
And a wild card bracket of stupid. Anything that doesn't fit into the other three groups goes here.
MAKE IT HAPPEN.
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BeckoningChasm: I still firmly maintain that he's making a huge mistake by not going with a "Les Moore, The Most Annoying Man In The World" format. It's just a golden opportunity that's going to waste. TeeBee could still use his beloved cast of millions, they'd just be the Westviewians interacting with Les as he wandered about annoying people every day. There's no need to flesh out their dopey back stories or "catch up" with them from time to time: no one cares and no one will ever miss any of them. And we'd have more than enough snark fuel (understatement) with an all-Les format plus we'd be spared having to think up witty things to say about stories the author didn't even care enough about to make coherent.
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(Unedited Panel 1)
Darin : " They were trying to get my Dad to pronounce words, but he was having a hard time……Apparently trying to say "Fuck You"…requires a lot more motor skills than we can imagine!"
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