Louder
April 11, 2013 at 1:01 pm
Right, because Hollywood studios always have someone who has zero experience in writing movie scripts writing the first draft. That always happens.
Talk about putting the cart before the horse, huh? Though he can’t even get started on his screenplay, Les imagines himself and Cayla at the Academy Awards®. Even in his fantasies, Les must be self-effacing.
Hey, douchebag: there’s no “second place” at the Oscars®: you either win it or you don’t. And if Lisa’s Story were to be nominated, it’d be in the category of “Adapted Screenplay”. And oh, yeah: they don’t hand out Oscars® to made-for-basic-cable-television “movies”. Anyway, it’s Les’ daydream: naturally, this high school teacher and part-time pizza counterman from the Midwest beats out the likes of Tony Kushner, Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson* to take home the statuette, as Lisa’s ghost, smiling approvingly, hovers over his left shoulder.
(*Just a few of the nominees from last year)
The Academy, as the copyright owner of the Academy’s “Oscar” statuette, and owner of its trademarks and service marks, including “OSCAR®,” “OSCARS®,” “ACADEMY AWARD®,” “ACADEMY AWARDS®,” “OSCAR NIGHT®,” “A.M.P.A.S.®” and the federally registered “Oscar” design mark, is required to protect its properties against unauthorized uses and infringements.
Son of Stuck Funky 
The winner of the SoSF Third Anniversary giveaway is Jim C! Congrats, Jim! Please use the Contact SoSF form in the right sidebar to let me know where you want it sent! Thanks, everyone, for playing.
For the love of fuck this is puke inducing. I really did like this strip growing up, but TB really needs to retire/retire/retire.
So Tom leaves instructions for the weekend artist to turn Cayla’s features as Caucasian as possible…..wasn’t she once Black & Proud?
I didn’t realize that “Milk toast” is contagious ’cause she got a heavy case of it directly from the milk toast poster boy.
I think that Bull should step in and help Les out like he did with summers knee.
Sorry Tom… your 1/4″ is now measured in light years
As I read the Sunday comic, in the background, blasting out loud in my house, is the very appropriate cd “Voyage 34” by Porcupine Tree. Why is the music from this cd appropriate? you ask. Because it’s about a bad LSD trip, which is exactly how I feel reading today’s comic — bummer trip, Batcrazy, bummer trip indeed to come up with this crap.
Get a load of Tombat today, just Lesturbating furiously with both hands. I knew there’d be no f*cking way he’d ever be able to do a “Lisa’s Story”-related arc without somehow trotting her out and sure enough there she is, cheering the Delicate Genius on as he makes history by becoming the first ever made-for-TV movie screenplay writer to win an Academy Award.
Why, why SHOULDN’T Lisa be delighted that Les is becoming rich and famous on the back of her PAINFUL AND LINGERING DEATH?
Okay, I think there’s a misunderstand here about why Les is writing the first-draft script: it’s not that anybody intends to use it — it’s that Lisa’s Story is so damn great, they’re assigning him the script just as a way to hand him a ton of additional money.
I’m sure they’ll name him Executive Producer as well.
Merry Pookster, seriously, if she were proud, would she have married Les?
this reminds me of a plot way back couple weeks ago with writers block,lord of the late,think bathacks getting it too
Coming to theaters this holiday season….
FADE IN:
“Hut-one, hut-two…hike! Go deep, Funky! Awwww, shucks, ha ha! Isn’t life terrific? Hey, wait…Lisa? Why are you concernedly touching your breast like that?”
“I…I…it’s probably nothing. Let’s resume our wonderful lives…for now.”
“It’s nothing, Mrs Moore, go home. Oh shit, Mrs. Moore? It’s sumpin’ all right, lie down.”
“NOOOOOOOO!”
It’ll…be…(cough) all right, Spanky. We’ll lick this (cough) thing together, you’ll see (cough cough)”
“NOOOOOOOO!”
(Sound of mail opening very, very, very slowly)….”Mrs. Moore? I am your son.”
“NOOOOOOOO!”
“(Cough, sputter) Tell them….my story….darling. And (cough cough) John…Darling….that’d be a good one (cough) too. See you at the Pulitzers (cough) or the Oscars, whichever…comes….(cough) first. I…love…you…Spanky and…….”
“NOOOOOOOOO!”
“Lisa’s Story…….The Other Shoe”….coming soon!
Is it intentional that even the Oscar statuette looks like it wants to punch Les in his smug douchebag face in Panel 1? For God’s sake, man, adapting the screenplay of your own shitty book ought to be a cinch for you. It’s not like the producer of this year’s Oscars asked you to write the dialogue for a witty presentation skit for Paul Rudd and Melissa McCarthy.
Reveals a little more about Les’s, and Batiuk’s, psyches than he probably intended. Les isn’t interested in writing anything good, or doing justice by this story of his life. He’s just interested in writing something that’s going to win awards and accolades. It’s just more of his seemingly endless self-regard. He didn’t write it because he had something to say. He wrote it because he thinks it’ll be the best way to show everyone in the world just how awesome he is.
Nice call on the Oscar and Academy Awards copyright stuff, TF! The Academy is darned near a cult when it comes to protecting it’s image.
Fade in…. Aaaaand…….. Oh crap! Stuck again! BUGGER!!
So where did Goatee Boy find a yellow tuxedo shirt?
Yeah, dream on, Les/BatYuck. Hey, I’VE had dreams where I could fly.
For the love of fuck this is puke inducing. I really did like this strip growing up, but TB really needs to retire/retire/retire.
Me, too. But that was then, and this is now. Retire, retire, retire. And give us The Grande Finale. We have earned our ending.
Please use the Contact SoSF form in the right sidebar to let me know where you want [the book] sent!
I want it sent to O.B. Dan, because he’ll actually read it before using it to keep a table from wobbling, while I’d just go right to the short leg with this one – Jim C.
Just kidding…congrats, Jim!
Just as calling an atom bomb loud is inadequate, so is calling this strip self indulgent inadequate. May I suggest a new word for this level of narcissism? Batiuking it rhymes with puking which several people have already said it is inducing.
I think Batiuk misspelled the Hackneys.
Oh, and “congratulations”, Jim C.
Alright, alright. Some of these are over the top. Easy fellas, easy.
However I will say this. When I first saw that in the strip Les’ book was going to be made into a movie I thought of exactly the same thing as today’s strip. True story, I literally thought to myself ‘maybe a strip where Les daydreams about his movie winning the Oscar?’. The only difference? I dismissed that as something that, even if Batiuk actually wrote it, Les would quickly dismiss as a ridiculous fantasy.
Anyone willing to take a wager that it’ll actually win an Oscar? I normally expect abysmal* failure but I’m starting to think that absurd wish fulfillment is the future. A wife who doesn’t seem to care that her husband never seemed to move on from his previous wife (and at least one other woman fell for him), an easy book deal and good sales on his first book, a movie based on it where he gets to write the first script, a check sent for the script that’s apparently for a large sum. Why not just add ‘wins an Oscar’ to the list?
* Seriously Batiuk, there’s nothing wrong with allowing the serious issues of life to appear in your comic (if the comic is set in regular life) but by this point you’ve taken it to the grim extreme where I’d think the collective population of Earth committing suicide would be a good ending.
@TFHackett – your entry says all I was going to say.
But I’ll add that I have no pity for dear old Les because this is a self-inflicted wound. HE was the one who made writing the screenplay a condition of his contract with the studio (or whoever is going to produce this crap). Now he must write something so he can keep the big check Cayla drooled all over and that the studio can throw away and turn the project over to PROFESSIONAL screenwriters. You know, like the one who belong to a GUILD!
“Anyone willing to take a wager that it’ll actually win an Oscar?”
Who would have been willing to wager that Les was capable of any facial expression besides a smirk?
Jim C, I’m so sorry. There’s nothing anybody can say at a time like this that makes sense, except that at least now there’s no chance of you winning Volume III.
Nice of Cayla and Les to take along Creepy Blue Sunday Strip Twilight with them out to the Oscars, where they normally keep the lights on in the auditorium for the TV cameras, but 1/4 inch from reality blah blah blah.
Wouldn’t a made-for-TV movie be eligible for an EMMY award, and not an Oscar (which is for theatrical releases)?
Or does winning an Emmy not sound as great as winning an Oscar in Les’ narcissistic mind?
You like me! You really like me! (See, Les, that’s how you give an acceptance speech at the Anti-Felix Awards.)
What else can I say? I do have a birthday coming up, and it’s appropriate to the Batiuk-verse: May 4.
And the award for worst fantasy scene in a ‘comic’ long past its prime goes to………Tom Batiuk! Who would have guessed! I think adding Ghost Lisa put this one over the top.
Bill A: …I’ll add that I have no pity for dear old Les because this is a self-inflicted wound. HE was the one who made writing the screenplay a condition of his contract…
True enough. Flash back to August of 2011…
Forgot about this great comment from earlier in the week!
If Les wants control on how this movie is going to turn out why not have script approval instead of wanting to write the thing. I mean after all the changes that will happen it probably will be so different.
And Crayola has appeared to reach her Peak Whiteness today. Can we just have another quick peek at a picture of Original Cayla next to Oscar Trophy Wife Cayla?
It is hilarious how Dead Lisa suddenly appears over Goatee Boy’s left shoulder in the next to last panel – and she’s in a formal, strapless gown. Apparently she had a date for this event – maybe the bald brotha with the glasses.
So don’t be surprised if this dream sequence comes true. Right after Funky wins the Nobel Prize for Physics.
I was going to comment upon how bizarre it is that the African-American gentleman behind Less’ left shoulder in Panel 2 was somehow magically transmogrified into a white woman in Panel 5- but, hell, that’s already been done by Cayla!
If you need inspiration, Les, why don’t you jut turn on your TV to something called Cable Movie Entertainment, and watch whatever crappy films they have scheduled for the rest of the afternoon? That should help you establish an outline for what kind of sappy melodrama they’re looking for. They might even be cool with you just transcribing one of those films and changing the names.
I didn’t notice Ghost Lisa at first. Her presence makes this strip even more stomach-churning.
Well, we finally get to see Les’s “O” face.
#obligatory
Um, is that supposed to be Ben Affleck seated next to Les?
Careful! That much douchebaggery in one location could rip a hole in the space time contiuum.
“Lisa’s Story, part 2: The Re-Deadening”.
So is this going to be that flashback/retcon/sepia-toned Lisa arc we’ve heard about? Will Les re-live his story yet again? This has the potential to be a classic long-ass Les arc, unless Batso throws us another curveball and/or plays this strictly for “ha-has”.
Don’t worry, Les! I’m sure you’ll be a nominee for the Razzies. You just might win!
How can Les dream about winning an Oscar for his screenplay, when his movie was optioned by the CME cable tv network. Its a tv movie not a theatrical one. He can dream of winning an Emmy, but he wonj’t like it when his script is chopped up to fit in time for all the commercials.
I love how Les is apparently going to write the script front-to-back, without an outline or any supplemental aids, although I suppose if you don’t have an outline, front-to-back is as good an idea as any other.
I’ve written a few novels and scripts both, and none of them did I write like this. You don’t want a screwed-up transitional scenes adversely affecting more important “money” scenes. You write around your best work, not around something convention has forced you to write.
But that’s just how he’s going to do it. I bet he’ll also break a mold and be the first first-time teleplay writer who gets second billing on his cable movie, right after the production company credit.
Misery Porn Presents, A Les Moore Story
Even assuming this piddly Lifetime-Movie-of-the-Week could get nominated for an Academy Award, do they actually nominate the guy who writes the first draft? I’d think Les would just get shuffled off to the “based on the book by” credit…
This movie will be “Springtime for Hitler” bad