Wednesday’s strip has the big reveal of the reason for this arc: Batominc’s Pulitzer-trolling issue du jour: age discrimination in TV news.
It’s unclear now why Cindy was drinking in a hotel bar. Is she freshly back from an assignment? Unclear.
It’s unclear how much time has passed between yesterday’s scene and today’s. It’s unclear how Batominc will bring a fresh perspective to the issue at hand. I mean, the Google search for scholarly articles on the subject of age discrimination in media has ¾ million results.
But there’s got to be a Pulitzer in here this time, right? Right?
Son of Stuck Funky 
I’m sure ABC appreciates TB associating them with an age discrimination plotline.
FYI, TB’s son Brian apparently works as a production assistant (still?) at WKRC-TV, the CBS affiliate in Cincinatti. Coincidence? It sure doesn’t seem like he gets the ‘inside view’ of the process or anything…
So…Cindy will return to Westview, for her long overdue humiliation and death. Before the end, I’m sure Montoni’s can use another waitress, or DSH might need another cashier.
I called it!
Ah HA! Now it all…makes sense??? Just kidding, I still haven’t the foggiest idea of where he’s going with this. Apparently Cindy is now “too old” (chortle) to anchor the ABC Weekend News because Hollywood is shallow and doesn’t care about anything but the youth demographic and (zzzzzzzzzz). In other words, it’s the usual TB take on the “entertainment business” (excluding the funny pages which is the only medium that’s still “keepin’ it real”, as they say). And now Cindy is discovering that leaving the “friendly confines” was a huge, huge mistake that came at the cost of her VERY SOUL!!!!
This is why I’ll be somewhat surprised if Les’ stupid TV movie is anything but an exploitative clusterf*ck that leaves him and his pals mortified and disgusted by how low standards have fallen in today’s modern world and (zzzzzzzzzzzz). Because anything else simply wouldn’t fit into Batom’s bizarre worldview, where everything “old” was far superior in every way to today’s newfangled, confusing, disheartening and empty trends. Which is pretty weird when you consider that he completely overhauled his own comic strip TWICE in order to blah blah contemporary blah blah issues blah blah. But whatever, trying to make any sense out of this stuff makes my head hurt after a while.
But seriously, why the devil would a news division TV network flat out tell somebody they’re being fired because they’re old? That’s just giving Cindy a reason to file a lawsuit, like Christine Craft.
And is this a flashback? If so, why didn’t TB indicate it was. More sloppy storytelling if you ask me.
Hey, I bet that douchebag you blew off is looking pretty good now, huh Cindy?
He probably is some major Wall Street investment banker that was looking for his third trophy wife. You could have been set up for a life of luxury in the Hamptons and Greenwich, CT. But, noooooooooooooooo……You and your sour personality ruined everything!!!
Well, good luck doing human dis-interest pieces about DSH John’s Bronze Age Aquaman collection and Montoni’s halloween pumpkin pizza.
For three days I have been asking myself, “Isn’t Cindy Crankshaft’s granddaughter?” and postulating that we were maybe in the future somehow. But then I did what I hoped I wouldn’t do, and looked it up. I was thinking of *Mindy*. And now I know too much.
Oh, OK. So this happened in real life and upon realizing that he had an aging newswoman in his own strip, Batom ran with it. I understand now. I was confounded as to why on earth he’d suddenly trot out the long-forgotten Cindy totally out of nowhere, but now it makes sense.
Speaking of things that make no sense to me, one thing I’ve always really hated about FW that doesn’t get enough mention is the way TB insists on constantly skipping around and never finishing an arc before he starts ten new ones. He’s always done it that way and it’s always been annoying. I assume he does it that way because he knows he has nothing and he thinks it’s the best way to disguise that fact, but maybe I’m wrong and he seriously believes it heightens the “suspense” somehow, I don’t know. But whatever the reason, it’s really annoying and shitty way to tell stories in such a limited medium.
I believe in the real world networks have newspeople under contract, which they allow to expire when they are making a change. Cindy has a job until she doesn’t have a job, no one will bother admitting that they want to get younger. And she can recall that she undoubtedly pushed aside some aging anchorwoman when she made the jump from reporter to anchor. Circle of life, babe, go have a drink and thank someone you squirreled away parts of your exorbitant salary to fall back on.
please bathack, don’t make her have to sell comic starbuck back issues
This has to be an unstated flashback.
Hadn’t Cindy already been made redundant at ABC and wasn’t she on a local cable station when she made the big announcement about Les that inspired Frankie to return?
Why use ABC when there’s a tv network just right for this strip:
Max Schumacher: We could make a series of it. “Suicide of the Week.” Aw, hell, why limit ourselves? “Execution of the Week.”
Howard Beale: “Terrorist of the Week.”
Max Schumacher: I love it. Suicides, assassinations, mad bombers, Mafia hitmen, automobile smash-ups: “The Death Hour.” A great Sunday night show for the whole family.
Hey TomBat, we can’t tell if it’s a flashback because it’s not sepia-toned and there are no photo corners!
This comic strip is bloated with underused characters, so it makes perfect sense to bring back yet another forgotten Act II player. Of course she’ll find herself in Westview where she’ll wind up working at Montoni’s, or possibly teaching broadcast journalism at Westview High. Why not? Makes as much sense as someone in the same field as 68-year-old Diane Sawyer getting fired for being too old.
I’m not sure if the irony of the only character in the strip who doesn’t look like she was beaten with the hard life stick getting let go for being “too young” is intentional or not. I’d like to think it is, and yet I can’t give Batiuk that much credit.
Now Cindy can join “The View”.
Talk about a bunch of old…………..
Looks like she never should have insisted on going by “Cynthia” because she’s too old to be a “Cindy”.
You know this arc could be Mr. Batuik’s reply to the idea that FW is old and tired and just taking up space on the comics page that could be better used by a strip written by a younger person. It goes along with his moslty Damn kids today with their i pads and hula hoops and twenty-three skidoo rold view. .
@Epicus Speaking of things that make no sense to me, one thing I’ve always really hated about FW that doesn’t get enough mention is the way TB insists on constantly skipping around and never finishing an arc before he starts ten new ones.
EG, we still don’t know what happened between Becky and her mother on the scissors-lift. I’m not on pins and needles about that, because I know the resolution is far duller than I can imagine, but we haven’t even seen her mother since. And a murder would be kind of exciting for this town, wouldn’t it?
—And a murder would be kind of exciting for this town, wouldn’t it?—
BC, a Gary Ridgeway-esque serial killer would do wonders for this strip!!!
Not only would it be interesting but it would thin out the amount of useless characters that are in this strip. Kind of like what The Scourge of the Underworld was for Marvel Comics.
BC: And that particular dangling plot thread goes all the way back to the summer of 2012! Why not just close out a story and move on from there? Like this comic book collecting thing, I mean if it’s a seven or eight week arc then take seven or eight weeks and just TELL it. Why interrupt it for a week of Dinkle and a week of Cindy and a week of Wally or whatever? I don’t understand the logic behind breaking every long arc into all these fragments. If there even is any logic, that is.
Well there must be some pedophilic serial killer running loose in Westview, since all of Crazy Harry’s kids and Rachel’s kid seem to have disappeared without a trace.
Epicus, the argument for it is that no one really wants to follow these people that much for months. The argument against it is that no one has any idea what’s going on anywhere.