A new scene abruptly flash-cuts into view, as last week’s Starbuck Jones arc is abandoned once again. A bar, much too nice to be in Westview, and much too soulless to be anything but a hotel bar. I have to hand it to Batominc: he has mastered soullessness. And vast expanses of squiggly lines.
But of course, proportions always go haywire. Witness panel 3, where pint glasses look more like salt & pepper shakers, Cindy nurses a stemware shot glass of wine, and Smirky McSleazy’s old-fashioned glass also seems to have been provisioned by the CMDF.
And the dialogue—oh my!—the dialogue makes me want to invent a time machine so I can go back and dissuade the inventor of narrative fiction. Let’s see if we can make improvements.
First draft
Smirky McSleazy: Nice shoes. Wanna boink?
Second draft
Smirky McSleazy: Are you an interior decorator? Because when you entered the room, it became more beautiful.
Third draft
Smirky McSleazy: Did you bathe in sugar? Because you sure look sweet.
Nope. Going nowhere. I’ll be in the lab, working on that time machine. We’ll be better off without literature.
Son of Stuck Funky 
FW-baffling readers since 1972…A.D., that is. Cindy Summers is Funky’s (ewww) ex-wife and she was one of Act I’s “regulars” as well. I missed a lot of her Act II heyday as Act II would frequently disgust me to the point where I’d stop reading the strip for years at a time. But I do know she’s a TV newswoman/reporter/blah blah, one of the few locals to escape the hellscape that is Westview.
Your guess is as good as mine as to where the f*ck this could possibly be going or why TB felt he needed to re-visit YET ANOTHER one of his obscure and forgotten cast of zillions. Perhaps he was swamped with letters from angry Cindy fans (and by “swamped” I mean “he got two over the last twenty years”) demanding to know where she was. Or maybe he’s just as sick of his main characters as everyone else is. In any event, Evil Lounge Lizard Guy (love the arrogant Frankie-esque sneer) has no idea what he’s getting into here, unless he’s up for a night of wild moping and passionate soul-searching about days gone by.
Cindy’s reply is really amazing. Is there anyone of Westview origin who isn’t soaked in self-pity and depression?
Cindy left Westview to escape the mandatory 50 pound weight gain. I really hope this is Batiuk’s idea of a smooth opening line.
That is one of the more awkward opening lines I’ve seen. Try to imagine saying something that cumbersome when you’re trying to pick up a beautiful woman. (Or man, if that’s your persuasion)
I also love how self-loathing Cindy’s line is. It’s not even an attempt to brush the dude off. It’s just basic self-hatred. “Yeah, I may be hot, but I’m a terrible person.”
She’s internalized her creator’s opinion of her.
Guy Smiley’s a whole lot sleazier than I remember.
“It doesn’t look that good on the inside”.
Who wants to bet that she just received the results of an Xray that shows one or more organs riddled with cancer?
apauled: That’s my second guess. My first is Cindy (I think the last time I spotted her was when LISA’S STORY came out, which was OVER THREE YEARS AGO) has been laid off from her network job.
dougputhoff: She appeared briefly at the very start of last year’s big Frankie mega-arc, which was how Frankie found out about the big “Lisa’s Story” screenplay. Possibly a few crowd scenes before that too. But I can’t remember the last Cindy-centric arc or what it could possibly have been about, though.
She was embedded for a long time.
The sad thing is I can’t tell if that pickup line is deliberately written to be that terrible or not.
Epicus: I remember that, about half an hour after I’d posted my last comment.
“Hey babe, what’s your sign?”
“Cancer…”
I think apauled and/or dougputhoff have it.
Cindy has only done cameo appearances since she moved to New York in Act II, and pretty much all of them have had her on the periphery of another character’s misfortune. She showed up for Lisa’s last days, for the closure of Montoni’s New York location, for Wally’s too-late-to-join-the-Bonus-Army homecoming, in the aforementioned FTR story. Here she is without any of the other major characters, so it stands to reason that it is her “turn”.
Well, now that Lisa’s story is finally wrapped up, it only makes sense to get an early start on Cindy’s story.
The notion that Cindy and Funky (and Less for that matter) are the same age is just so unbelievable.
Perhaps BatHack is setting up a Westview adultery scandal arc. This is clearly the lobby bar of the Four Seasons Westview (or Ritz-Carlton Westview, I always get them mixed up). Cindy will inevitably run into Funky at Montoni’s. Funky, fresh off a 4 week stint with his personal trainer, has dropped close to 3 pounds. They soon realize the old sparks are still there and off we go. Buckle up everybody.
Trying to think of Westview pickup lines.
“Hey baby, if you’ll be my Lone Ranger, I’ll be your CHEMO-sabe!”
“If I buy you a couple of drinks, you’ll have TU-MOR!”