In The Doghouse

Today’s strip.

What a difference a day makes.  Yesterday, Rocky’s mom looked elfin and cute, kind of like Darrin’s long-lost step-sister.  You remember…whats-her-name.

Before…

Today, she looks like a withered meth-addict.

…after.

Her face has lengthened, her hair has grown, and her mouth is about three times as large.  Well, at least she has some cool dogs.

Why does Tom Batiuk do this–take someone and cruelly re-draw them?    He’s done it with every single character, with the notable exceptions of the lovingly-rendered Moores.  Does he really not like any of his other characters?  We’ve hardly gotten to know Carla, and the act of stepping into her own house has aged her about forty years.  She’s not that bad a character!

…yet.

17 thoughts on “In The Doghouse”

  1. TomBat probably thinks that drawing ugly characters is part of being a “reality-based” comic-but-not-funny strip. His signature pencil necks are what I find horrifying.

  3. Ahhh….new “children” to be sacrificed like all the others who have mysteriously vanished…..wally jr. & Harry’s kids & Rachel’s son……and Kahn.

  4. Ooooh-fa, that dialog is so stilted it actually hurts to read it. I know he was going for “warm & nice” here with Ms. Rocky but he hit “desperate and strange” instead. Oh well, better than “smug and bearded” or “fat and stupid”, I suppose.

    I have no idea what the point is of giving this Carla woman a back story or with making her look all weathered and beleaguered, or even if there is a point. Which there probably isn’t. My guess is that he just couldn’t resist reminding us that things are tough all over, as if reading FW daily didn’t already drive that point home like a jackhammer. All of the non- Moore characters are all just morphing into one big indistinguishable blob anyway, so it really doesn’t matter much anyhow.

    Look at Holly, bravely wearing her finest Westviewian smirk as she endures Carla’s personal hellscape and pitiful whining, just waiting for the moment she finally gets that stupid comic book in her meaty little paws so she can race back to the Westview city limits as soon as she can.


  6. And then in panel three, she suddenly looks like Fishstick Annie’s long-lost sister. Would it be too much to ask to keep the same face for at least one full strip?

    And what is Batiuk’s obsession with under-eye shadows? Nearly every character he draws looks like they haven’t slept in two days.

  7. Well they aren’t teenagers but at least we’re looking at people who aren’t Les and have no connection to Lisa. I know, I’m really scraping the bottom of the barrel for compliments but that’s all I’ve got!

  8. “Rocky’s told you all about me? Funny, Cory hasn’t said anything about you. Not that I would have been listening if he had…

    “So, what body part do you think Rocky will be missing the next time you see him? I figure Cory’s will be ironic, but I don’t know what that is, because I hardly know my own son. But from what I do know, I think it’ll be his larynx just because some guy named Tom would think it’d be hilarious having him sass us using his voice prosthesis.”

  10. And isn’t it kind of weird that Rocky was talking to Carla at length about Cory’s mother?

    “Yeah mom, Cory’s mom is overweight, has short hair and she smirks a lot! She’s married to a guy named Funky who…get this…co-owns and manages an almost-profitable pizza place! I know, right? She sounds awesome! Cory’s mom! Cory’s mom!!”

    I just can’t see that happening in any context. Cory is sitting around the base chatting it up about his mother? That’s just plain odd and not really in character either.

  11. “it seems Rocky and Cory have become good friends.” “Seems Madam? Nay it is I know not seems” Hamlet – either they are good friends or not – seems has no place in that sentence at all. None. And wouldn’t his mother know if they are good friends or not? It’s a typical odd Batuik word choice that ends up weakening the story he’s trying to tell.

    And oh yes – given the two dogs and young kids running about the house – Rocky is dead meat. He might as well show Cory the picture of his fiancé and get it over with.

  12. This is the most unwanted lesbian prelude since… since…..well since Cayla asked Keisha if she thought she was hot.

  13. OK, so after today’s strip, what do we know about Carla? She is a harried mother who lives in a house full of large dogs and small children running amok, and no furniture. She’s named her son after a flying squirrel from the Bullwinkle cartoon show, so I must assume that the other two kids are fraternal twins named Boris and Natasha. There’s no indication that Carla has a husband, or if she does, he stays away from the house as much as possible. She so desperately craves adult companionship that she’s pleading with one of the dullest characters in the strip to be her friend. After she coughs up the comic book, she’ll never be heard from again.

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