I don’t know whether it’s “the picture of domesticity” but has Les ever looked douchier that he does in today’s panel 2? I especially like how the Google Earth perspective accentuates his bald pate. Meanwhile, our story’s other two-toned skunk head, well, just plain skunk, arrives on the scene, driving a car with that special windshield tint that makes everything look like it’s on TV. Frankie’s car must also have a sunroof, too: it’s the only way to explain the weird shadows on the back of his head.
41 thoughts on “Drive By”
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Son of Stuck Funky 
I’m getting the subtle impression that Frankie might not be a nice person…
It’s a picture of something all right, but I would have gone with “two nitwits and a douche” over “domesticity”. Pretty fancy lingo for a no-goodnik like FTR, no? And Jessica, news flash, babe: it’s a f*cking movie OPTION, not a deal, m’kay?
I’m digging Frankie and his moustache-twirling arch-villainy, at least until BatContrive ruins it all with some nonsensical, lame “twist” that leaves everyone yawning in open-mouthed boredom. But until then, he’s quite a hoot. Westview quite frankly needs an angry, scheming, anti-social outcast, at least IMO.
For those of you who remember Bela Lugosi in “The Phantom Creeps,” on MST3K:
“How convenient! Deez simplifies every-ting!!!!”
Jessica… why are you just now offering congratulations to Les that Hollywood options was before you two moved in with country cousin.
Lame.
BUT….not as lame as the FTR arch will turn out to be.
Lisa with Masky McDeath was the only story TB really gave an ending to (sort of)
The suspense is terrible… I hope it lasts.
Hope there’s a railroad track in town that this guy can lash someone to.
is it just me are is that some really horrid drawing in 1rst panel ?
I can’t tell what that is on Les’ shirt… the sun’s butthole?
Frank is already my all-time favorite FW character. And I bet it gets even better.
Um, no. That isn’t a picture of domesticity. That’s a couple leaving a man’s house. No arms around each other (I think, it’s hard to tell in the last panel), no laughing at dumb family jokes, no nada. And how close is this guy to them? You’d think his car was stopped on the street right outside the house. Want to maybe ask that man to move his car Les? He’s going to hold up traffic.
To be fair, maybe (just maybe) the contrast between color and greys in the panels is supposed to represent the happier, more social life Les and those two have compared to Frank’s dreary grey world of isolation. Even if that’s so, the dialogue needs to be changed.
And yeah, the movie. Is the script finished Les? Is your wife pushing you to reread it and revise it? Has she explained why she seems to care more than you do? Are we just going to forget about the movie in favor of the late John Darling (who appears to have elbowed out that baby -remember the baby?- for importance)?
Wow, 5 o’clock shadow on the back of his neck. This Frankie guy must be evil times the power of YOWZAH!
In panel two, it looks like our two new parents-to-be are leaving in a bit of a huff, like, “Oh, we’d better congratulate you, since it’s obvious that you care much more about your movie option/whatever than our newly conceived child….you shitdrinker.”
I keep wondering just how this Frankie can exert any leverage at all against three adults, unless he just plans to hang around being obnoxious, until Les pays him to scram. Tell you what though, with Les as a benchmark, that better be pretty goddam obnoxious. This whole scene should be good for a few laughs, especially if Les emits a Wilhelm scream at the very sight of the Frankinator.
In Panel 2, Less reminds me of nothing so much as a giant, effeminate pigeon. Come to think of it, Less reminds me of a giant, effeminate pigeon in every panel…
Who’s the skanky, ugly, stoned redhead in the SoSF logo? Is that going to be FTR’s evil female accomplice? Because that’s all he’s missing now. I see he’s been to Kid Toucher John’s barber.
If we know Batyulch at all, we can be pretty sure that he has this vague idea of squeezing FTR into this goofy “coda,” but has no idea what he’ll do with him. Here are a few ideas.
Have FTR move in next door to Les. He could be the whacky neighbor who always barges in uninvited, or borrows things without ever returning them. Smirks, puns, and hilarity follow.
Or – Turns out FTR is also — SURPRISE!!!– a writer, and is writing a competing book and screenplay about Dead Lisa, with a differing point of view. Smirks, puns, hilarity follow.
Or – FTR gets a job at Montoni’s and is always bugging Funky to serve new, really yucky pizza recipes named after dictators and mass murderers throughout history.
FTR kills Nate and becomes the new prinicipal. He calls an assembly to introduce the NEW Student Manual, which clearly states bullying and bigotry against gays is “okay.”
5000 points, mow them down Frankie!
Frankie’s windshield has the sepia tones of Batiuk nostalgia photo albums.
“If that just isn’t the picture of domesticity. Yup, sure is nice. Well, time’s a-wastin’, and I still need to track down the child of that girl I knocked up in high school, assuming that she even kept the baby. Next stop, Centreville!”
So what exactly is FTR’s plan?
1. Drive to Westview from his wrong-side-of-the-tracks-ville hovel.
2. Check into local motel long term (this begs the question, how far away
was he living that he needed to get a hotel room, and what media outlet
other than Westview News One would carry a story about Les’ movie
option, so how in the world did he see that news story?)
3. Drive past Les’s house repeatedly.
4. ????
5. Profit!!!
“If that isn’t just the picture of domesticity.”
Funny enough, I actually said this the last time I saw a photograph of a housecat. I subsequently added “then I don’t know what is.” because I like to speak in complete sentences.
I love how all the characters live life like (Ooooh, alliteration! take note Batty!) they have no jobs, just wandering around Westview, chillin’. Speaking of which: If FTR is such a loser, how’s he paying for the motel? Looking forward to the highjinks to come, sure it will all make sense in the end….. right?
The redhead is the waitress Wally started to live with after One Arm married the pedophile.
So, what’s the hell is he waiting for???
Douchebag Les is right in view.
He’s got his car in position.
His foot is near the accelerator.
His biological son has a front row seat to witness the carnage.
He’s got two reasonably attractive women he can molest afterwards.
Is he waiting for the engine to warm up??
Love the foreshadowing in the banner TFH. Rachel as a meth addict. Who saw that coming?
Beanie: Have FTR move in next door to Les. He could be the whacky neighbor who always barges in uninvited, or borrows things without ever returning them. Smirks, puns, and hilarity follow.
He could be Herb Woodley to Les’ Dagwood!
I would love to know what Frankie intends to do. Seriously. Sue for back child support? Just be a general Les to everyone? Get a job at the high school and Les everyone?
I imagine the idea is that Frankie will sue Les for the unflattering portrayal in the upcoming movie, but I’m pretty sure it’s too late for that. (NB: I am not a lawyer.) I don’t believe you can pick and choose your targets when one of them (CME) has big pockets–Frankie can’t say “I’ll let the book pass because Les has no money, but a movie…now we’re talking cash!”
Kind of like, Tom Batiuk has to sue you if you have a sidewalk stand selling emetics and you have pictures of Les decorating your banner, if he then wants to sue Microsoft when they later release Microsoft Barf with a Les-shaped icon. It’s either all or nothing.
Beckoning, actually, you can’t choose whom you sue for trademark violations. But you can pick and choose whom you sue for defamation. At least that’s my understanding. I also am not a lawyer.
@Withering – ah, thanks for clarification. I guess that’s the road that Batiuk is traveling.
“If that isn’t just the picture of domesticity.”
— So said a self-satisfied Tom Batiuk as he surveyed his drawing of a distant trio of characters standing in a driveway.
Maybe Frankie’s return will lead to plot taken from Sam Shepard’s True West.
It wouldn’t be too late for Frankie to sue for defamation if Les were stupid enough to have used his name in the book — but he wouldn’t be likely to win. And of course there’s the Streisand Effect.
Or to use an example closer to home, there was the surge in traffic SoSF received when Batiuk tgried to shut it down.
I see Rachel above…are we due for a rare Buddy The Wonder Dog appearance? I hope he’s recovered from that ferris wheel trauma.
Since John is so despicable, did he steal a GPS from the Band to find the house? Maybe he’s waiting to give them an extra turkey? Oh the humanity? What will happen? I can’t wait, please someone stop this madness!
Okay… Got it.
Frankie conforts Les and makes some sort of hostile demands.
Les termbles and has little lines going off his head into space.
Cayla overhears from inside the house.
Cayla steps outside & coldcocks Frankie.
Next…?
Looks like Frankie’s going bald. He’s also piercing his chin with a steering wheel.
Spoke to soon! Judging by TFH’s banner…FTR will have THREE reasonably attractive women he can molest later. Attractive by Westview standards of course.
Tom Batiuk: If you could see my drawing board now. You’d burst into tears the way I do every morning.
WARNING: Spoilers ahead….my “inside source” at Batom Inc. World HQ tells me that FTR will reveal to Les that he also had a saintly wife who tragically died from cancer and he also wrote a book about her, a BETTER book than “Lisa’s Story” that was also optioned by a REAL movie studio to be made into a REAL motion picture. An enraged Les confusedly races to the park bench only to discover that FTR is already there, chatting with both his own dead wife AND Lisa as well. Then the arc just ends and will resume sometime in 2015. You’re welcome.
Voice of Anthony Stewart Head: “Previously on FUNKY…”
Frankie: “I suggest you choose your next witicism most carefully, Les Moore…it may be your last.”
Les: “You dastardly fiend!”
*************************************************
But, seriously, Tom apparently believes that evil people talk IRL the way they do in those Comix he’s so fetish-tastically devoted to.
How about this: Frankie murders Les.
Owen and Cody write a book about the murder, during the course of which they discover the identity of the murderer.
Summer decides to make a documentary about her father. But she waits three years to get started.
Actually, anything after “Frankie murders Les” would be fine by me.
Frankie reaches up out of the page, grabs Batsuck’s Phunky Phelt Tip, and shoves it up his (Batty’s) ass.
… as the curtain falls on Act III.
Exclusive sneak-peek at dialogue from next week’s strips:
Les:” Goddammit, Funky, this is all your fault! If you hadn’t mentioned my screenplay to your ex-wife, Cindy, I wouldn’t have gotten butt-raped up the butt by Darrin’s birth father, Frankie the Rapist!”
Funky: “Speaking of your left behind…”
EXT. THE TAJ MOOREHAL.
LES: Frankie. What–what are you doing here? I’ve a mind to call Cayla out here to give you what for!
FRANKIE: Les, Les, please! I’m not here to cause any trouble. I just want to—I just want to talk. Let’s have a seat on the bench, OK?
LES: Well, OK. But no funny stuff!
FRANKIE: Don’t worry, Les, I stand in line.
EXT. THE PARK BENCH. LES MOORE and FRANKIE are seated on it. VFX: We SEE a luminous head of LISA MOORE hovering above.
LES: So what is the topic of which that you would like to discuss about, Frankie, a man who once had sex with my then-future wife Lisa, who died of cancer, which totally happened to me, Les Moore, who also wrote a book about John Darling?
FRANKIE: I love your way with words, Les! And that’s not all! I love you, Les Moore! I’ve always loved you. That’s why I forced myself to have sex with Lisa. I just wanted to be inside, where you had been. It was my desperate way to be intimate with you. I was young and foolish!
LES (sputtering): W—w—w—what! I guess some children—I mean—I, uh…
FRANKIE (reaching out to put a hand on Les’s thigh; Les does not recoil): Hear me out, Les! I’m gay! I don’t even know how I managed it. But when I heard from Cindy Summers that Jessica Darling and Darrin Fairgood were expecting a child, I had to come tell you—tell you…
LES: Tell me what‽
FRANKIE (more deliberately now): A long time ago, I earned extra money by being a sperm donor. This isn’t in your book because so few people knew. John Darling was sterile. Les, I’m Jessica’s biological father! She has to be told! She’s having a child with her half brother!
VFX: Above, we SEE the head of LISA MOORE silently laughing.