Anyone waiting for some sort of Bautikian demise for Coach better stop holding their breath; no, from the look of today’s strip we’ve got at least a few months of “Unlikable loser no one likes teaches coach a few things about football, and, in turn, learns a lot about life.” strips coming down the pike. Now, if Jerod is supposed to be the new coach’s assistant or new quarterback I couldn’t tell you, but prepare to wallow in 80s high school movie troupes that’ll culminate with Jerod being crowned the Westview Homecoming King.
Not bad for a 30 year old who still hangs out at school!
Son of Stuck Funky 
Well, the FW version of “Bad News Bears” is a possibility. Or, alternately, it could be a week’s worth of pointless, ponderous football gags featuring a soon-to-be-forgotten throwaway character. I’d actually be more surprised if it does go anywhere, to be honest. A new character AND a “real” story? Seems ambitious for FW and TB.
So what exactly do people in detention usually do when Bull isn’t there? Do they just sit in some cafeteria all by themselves? Does he make the rest of them go out to watch the team?
Oh yeah, Bull badmouthing the team but this isn’t exactly public. Take a sip I guess.
Ohhhhhhhh, now I get it! Jarod is just a red herring for a three-day build-up to Bull making another one of his comic slams about the school’s football team being a pack of losers. Good show, Batiuk, ol’ boy! By tomorrow, Jarod will be sitting in purgatory with his new roommates Frankie, Lenny, Susan, Dan, Khan, Wally, Jr. and Crazy Harry’s other kids.
I would punish Jarod by making him read all of Act III in one sitting. Unfortunately, that is probably outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
I do have a certain fondness for sappy team sports stories, especially ones about American football. Remember the Titans and Brian’s Song wormed their way into my heart, bless them. But I just don’t see it happening in FW.
In a more competent comic or even A3G this would be an obvious setup for any of your ‘save our team!’ plots. But despite what Epicus Doomus said, though, I’m sticking to my guns of ‘this goes nowhere’.
Jeffcoat, who’s Dan?
I always overestimate (seriously) FW’s ability to entertain. Part of that’s me, but part of it is FW’s amazing ability to always underwhelm and fall short of even the lowest expectations. Sometimes it’s just impossible to dumb yourself down enough to fully grasp how stupid this strip is.
Gyre: I think Dan was the guy who climbed Kilimanjaro with Les and Summer.
The football team shows drastic improvement and does a remarkable job. Jarod watches with shining eyes, awed and envious. Bull is horrified; his punishment failed. He got what he wanted, at the expense of his pride. He drinks himself to death.
If it got any more depressing than that, it would be a meandering plot about nothing where everyone lives but no one escapes the monotony. But this strip isn’t that sad.
“If it got any more depressing than that, it would be a meandering plot about nothing where everyone lives but no one escapes the monotony.”
Batiuk ought to be thankful that there is a place such as SoSF.
If it weren’t for the fact that I can retreat here into a world of reality where the faux contemporary issues of young adults can be honestly discussed, I would have no reason to look at the strip………………..
Multiplied by how many?
“Yeah, yeah, teen smoking is bad. But speaking of bad, how about those BULLY JOCKS, am I right?”
Batiuk can taste that Pulitzer already!
Even Judd Nelson was a more convincing teen badass than Jarod.
So, what happens first? Thug Lite becomes the Scapegoat QB and leads them to victory over Big Walnut Tech, or TB gets a C+D letter from the lawyer for the creators of Gil Thorp for cribbing their primary trope?
But seriously, what the hell is up with Jerod’s hairline!?
3 days in and Jarod hasn’t tried to sell Bull a counterfeit watch? That’s what trenchcoats are for, right?
Or maybe, in Westview, trenchcoats are for selling counterfeit comic books. Jarod probably has the complete Smash Jordan (with Rainforest Ryan toppers) under there… $20.
Gyre: Dan the Mountain Man of Kilimanjaro. Still surprised Batiuk didn’t leave him and the cat stranded at the peak to freeze to death or go full-on cannibal. The Pulitzer committee must have told him “No thanks” in advance.
all this just to bash the football team again? Let it go man. Just let it go. You’ll be so much happier – oh wait – I was asusming you wanted to be happy my bad.
Don’t be alarmed. That sonic boom you heard was caused by the speed of Jarod’s receding hairline. If this had been an actual emergency, or anything else interesting, it wouldn’t be portrayed in FW.
Is Jerod another of Lisa’s children? From an earlier encounter with Christian Slater?
I like to think this is how Marty Moon got started.
But seriously, what the hell is up with Jerod’s hairline!?
I can’t Photoshop it but panel 3 Jarod looks awfully ‘Nick Cage’ to me…
You know, in the Act 1 strips I’ve seen, the cast looks like a group of kids I can believe to be teenagers. (The only Act 2 strip I’ve seen with teenagers was drawn by John Byrne, not Batiuk, so it doesn’t count). The prior teens of Act 3 – you know, Summer, Owen, Cody, etc – still feel like kids, I guess, but they feel more like teens as cast by Hollywood; ie, the actors might be anywhere from 16 to 23. But this year’s additions, Alex* and Jerod? They feel like the kind of ‘teenagers’ you’d get back in the old days, when nobody gave a crap and we just got thirtysomethings to play the parts. It’s baffling. Did he just have extra model sheets lying around, and decide last minute that he needed some extra teens to keep this going? Seriously, I’d believe that Lenny was a high school student before Jarod.
*Yes, Alex showed up in the past, but I refuse to believe she was a high school student before her appearance this year.
Okay, maybe like this:
