Month: August 2013

For Worse Or For Worse-er-er

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Forget about Dinkle’s execrable, mind-numbingly stupid “joke” and ignore the ridiculous notion of DSH John actually WANTING to spend more time with his incessantly complaining, miserable one-armed wife instead of hanging out in his tree fort with his comic books all day. No, the one truly noteworthy thing about this otherwise awful arc is the fact that Batom managed to go an entire week without featuring Becky’s infamous pinned-up sleeve even once! I know, amazing, right? She’s just letting that freak sleeve fly this week and I for one welcome the change because that tri-folded pinned-up sleeve always annoys the hell out of me.

Hopefully this marks the end of “Pandering To Band Directors In The Hope They’ll Clip These Strips And Tape Them To The Band Room Door” week because we’re really scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel here now. You’d think he’d put a little effort into these seeing how it’s a subject so near and dear to him, but I guess not, based on how staggeringly flaccid and feeble this arc was. Par for the course, I suppose.

#worstonearmedcharacterever

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Today BatBrain tries to go “topical” by referencing that Tweety thing that’s all the rage with those goddamned worthless kids today, with their chullos and cell phones and all. I would imagine that the bulk of her student’s tweets would consist of some variation on “wow Ms Howard is a real bitch” and/or “why do I still take band, it sucks”. Anyhow, this entire week has been a dumping ground for all those band-related gags that have been clanging around in that pointy little head of his for god only knows how long, so it was kind of inevitable that his love of marching bands and hatred of technology would clash, I guess. I assume the strip where Becky proposes a “Pizza In 1930’s Comic Book Lore” band routine is coming tomorrow.

Panel three: Summer called, she’d like her gritty face back before basketball season, please. Seriously though, Becky, take the whole beleaguered band director routine down a few pegs, OK? It’s getting seriously grating now and we’ve all had just about enough. Becky always gets overlooked when you think about really annoying FW characters but when she’s around she’s a contender for sure.

Sweat Chullo O’ Mine

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Hey look, it’s Cody and Owen, who’ve been attending WHS for at least five or six years already, sweating their way through another horrible and joyless summer band camp just like we’re suffering through another horrible and joyless summer band camp arc! Mind blown. Much as with Becky, one has to wonder why they keep voluntarily participating in an activity that apparently gives them no enjoyment whatsoever. Again, kind of like us! Whoa. The fabled Westviewian masochism must be contagious.

One also has to wonder why Owen would elect to wear a wool cap with ear flaps in the middle of August, or why Cody doesn’t remember Becky losing her shit last year, or the year before that, or the year before that, or the year before that and so on. So in short, it doesn’t appear that either of these two dimwits will be graduating anytime soon. On the plus side, though, they’ll be able to legally buy their own alcohol soon, which should make the ride home from the prom a little more interesting provided that FW remains “true to form”. Owen really does have that “future FW fatality” look about him, doesn’t he? And Cody….yeah.

I have to believe that even the most easily amused band directors would think twice before clipping this strip and taping it to the band room door. Especially the ones battling any sort of mental illness which, based on the knowledge of band directors I’ve gleaned from reading FW, means all of them because teaching band is the most difficult and thankless job there is and everyone who does it is insane. Right?

Head Games

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Apparently Dinkle, who’s obviously spent way, way too much time hanging around that school, has no idea how actual tunnels work. And apparently TheAuthor, who’s spent way, way too much time re-visiting one of his old Act I stalwarts, has no idea how to make Dinkle funny without invoking his old, long-since dead and buried persona. Or even when he does, as aptly demonstrated today.

Of course the one glaringly obvious flaw in this “joke” (other than the aforementioned tunnel fail) is that Dinkle, who apparently NEVER leaves the school grounds except for infrequent sex romps and massages, must have seen the big inflatable football helmet before. But for the sake of his creepy fantasy, the reader has to pretend this is the first he’s heard of it. OK Tom, whatever. Like I always say, no point in having suddenly start making sense now.

Megaphoning It In

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“Easy there, Becky…you’re beginning to sound like your mother.”

“I see my influence is finally rubbing off on you, Becky.”

(No third panel at all)

There, three “jokes” right off the top of my head that would have worked better than having the constantly cackling Dinkle make a stupid irrelevant reference to a character from a different strip no one cares about. This is one of those times when I just can’t grasp the logic at work here, unless it’s just pure unmitigated laziness, in which case I understand completely.

How many FW readers are even going to get that “joke”? I’d bet that they’ll both be confused and be forced to resort to going to the official Batom Inc. website, clicking on “complete cast of characters” and scrolling through the detailed information within in order to…oh, wait. Never mind.