
I gave myself a migraine trying to decipher the tin-eared dialogue in today’s strip. “There’s a couple of tick-tocks before class starts”? This is bully-speak? Sounds like baby talk. “Kick your butt off“? “Off” doesn’t follow “butt” in this construct, unless I’m “kicking your butt off the team”, or “off the bus”, etc. Never heard of anyone getting his “butt kicked off”. Oh, I see: this is setup for Cody’s retort: “No problem, I’ll just share yours.” Share his butt? ‘th hell?!?
And what skinny teenage nerd confidently cracks wise in response to a verbal threat, however clumsily it’s worded? This is the same tactic that teenage Les used with teenage Bull. Of course now we know that that wasn’t real bullying at all. Mr. Black Shirt Hatchet Face appears to be serious. Given his renown for “tackling serious real-life issues”, you’d expect that TB would at least attempt to treat bullying a little more thoughtfully. Instead he goes for “funny” but it just comes out “wrong”.