Epicus Doomus In case you’re the one person on earth who doesn’t already know where this arc is going, let me clue you in: everything old was great and everything new sucks.
Epicus called it; this week’s arc is the exact same storyline as last week’s mindless banter about Blackberries except that now we’re lamenting the fact that people are buying online instead of going to the local bookstore, which is open from 9:30 -5 except on Wednesdays and Sundays when they’re closed. Oh, and come early, parking is a nightmare.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Boring? Well, let’s see if we can punch up Droopy’s dialogue in today’s strip:
“Business has been falling off for years, Crazy… of course, you wouldn’t have noticed that because you spend all your time drinking coffee at a pizza parlor.”
ZING!
“I was left with two choices: close down… or hire Cory Winkerbean to torch the place, collect the insurance money, and run away to Mexico.”
DOUBLE ZING!!
With all of Les’s connections in the NYC literary scene and at KSU Press and then Hollywood…yet he’s never been to this bookstore and can’t save this poor schmuck with the bad fortune of being in Westview.
BUT WAIT… suddenly he finds a box of originally shipped /never opened vintage comic books.
All is saved!
Help me out here. Is the “joke” supposed to be:
A) Books are “antiques” in this day and age?,
B) Bookstore Guy is very old and will probably die soon?, or
C) Bookstore Guy is a closeted homosexual man and is trying to subtly hit on Harry?
When we, as a society, grudgingly accepted the ability to order a book online, we sacrificed the expreience of interacting with crabby local businessmen who give their little stores unbearably cutesy and lame names like “Village Booksmith”. We collectively lost the bond a business and a customer form over talking about how much things suck nowadays. And we are poorer for it, you see, in case the subtle point being made here somehow misses hitting you in the face like a dead mackerel.
“Village Booksmith”, ugh. No wonder he’s failing, people walk by and think to themselves, “who ever needs to get a book repaired???”. “Falling off for years”…so like everyone else in that town he just made a sad, resigned-to-fail face and sat there doing nothing until his inevitable demise. Good plan.
Next week: Harry stops by “VCRsUs” to get his tape heads re-aligned and his horrified to learn the shop is struggling to survive.
“Actually there was a third choice, which would be to at least attempt to incorporate online services and e-media into my business. But then I wouldn’t be able to self-righteously lament how nobody does things The Good Old-Fashioned Way anymore, and I couldn’t deny myself that.”
When Harry dies (inevitably of cancer of course), does anyone else think they are going to find dozens of storage lockers of undelivered mail? I understand the pseudo hippy credo, but would it kill him to deliver mail even once in a while!?!
Serves Mr. Flat-Top Bookstore Owner right. No one steals Les’ yellow shirt and gets to stay in business.
Say, is anyone here sick enough to search eBay for FW paraphernalia? Apparently I am.
How about sick enough to drop a C-note on an original FW 6 strip newspaper proof from the summer of 1999?
Yes, you can relive the exciting introduction of Rachel, in her original role of every nerds’ innapropriate dream, extremely attractive young woman who works at a comic book store!
See Creepy Pete’s teenage lust when it was a little less creepy, because he was, you know, a teenager!
Reminisce about the days when Darin had not yet reached brick-level intelligence!
Laugh as 2 married men and a bearded toker stumble all over themselves in the presence of the may-or-may-not-be-legal Rachel!
Also featuring… the late, great Bruce Lee as Lisa!
Good find, Billy! Wow, it’s horrifying what the ravages of time have done to Funky and Les in 12 years, or 22 years, who the hell knows, not even the writer, that’s for sure.