Today Batom inexplicably repeats the (ahem) “big reveal” for no apparent reason other than to reaffirm its cleverness to himself, I guess. Or maybe he just assumes that his regular readers are so stupid that they’ll forget JD’s last words unless they’re hammered into their brains repeatedly. Or maybe, just maybe, he’s a total hack who couldn’t think of a better way to end this ponderous story without resorting to mindless meandering and pointless repetition. I personally think it’s a little bit of all three.
And JD, I think everyone would be surprised if Jessica takes up chess. Very, very surprised. Almost as surprised as I’ll be if this arc doesn’t end on an even more nauseating note than it struck today.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Right, because this vain image-conscious talk show host who nicknamed his daughter after a plastic doll has high ambitions for his child’s intellect.
I came across a leaked transcript of Jessica’s doco!
[Main title]
FALLEN FATHER
My Search for my Father, John Darling
Jessica (to camera): My father, John Darling, was murdered when I was a baby. So I never got to know him. Growing up, I always wondered about him. So I set out to find out about my father, John Darling. And I spoke to many who knew him.
(Montage of various co-workers talking about what a terrible, terrible man John Darling, her father, was.)
Jessica (to camera): My journey seemed to be taking me places I didn’t want to go. No one wanted to say anything good about my father, John Darling. Except for one dear friend.
(Les Moore sits on a couch and smirks)
Les Moore: I wrote a book about John Darling.
Jessica (to camera): But despite this island of sanity, I began to have doubts. Could this man really have been my father, John Darling? Were the others all wrong about him, somehow?
(Shot of Westview prison)
Jessica (VO): Then, something happened, in the last place I expected.
(Scene of actors recreating the visit between Jessica and Plantman)
Plantman Actor (VO): “I will love Barbie forever!”
Jessica (to camera): It was then that the pieces fell into place. Sometimes, in the most unexpected places, a single flower appears. At that moment, I knew.
(Video scene of John Darling, her father, and Jessica playing together).
John Darling (VO): How’s my little Barbie Doll (c)(tm) today?
Jessica (to camera): Sometimes, the things you just know turn out to be true, despite what others might mistakenly believe. My father, John Darling, might have been a little harsh with those who let him down or weren’t up to his level. And while that might have bothered me once, now I know the truth. You see, I learned that, no matter how rough the exterior, the heart shines through.
[End titles
If, after reading that, you felt as much like throwing up as I did while writing it, then my work is done!
Please leave this story arch right this very day. If the is a god in we won’t see this motely hair-do after today.
Honestly, if this was the actual strip would it even make a difference?
Oi, Epic Doomus and other SOSF hosters:
Have you ever considered making ‘anticlimax’ a blog tag? With this comic, you could really put that keyword through its paces.
The last sentence is best interpreted as meaning “Because if you show any signs of having a brain, I can’t love you any more.” He wanted a pliable dim-bulb who’d worship him and take his crap, not someone who’d weigh his asshattery with a critical eye. Given the tone of this mess of a documentary, Tuxedo Mask, Psychopomp probably told him he could rest easy, He’s got one.
You know, I’m starting to suspect that John Darling’s last words might have something to do with his daughter. It’s just a wild guess, though.
No surprise, looks like Dear Author is playing fast-and-loose with the backstory. Was Jessica a baby, or a 10-year-old, when her father, John Darling, was killed?
So MFJDWWM was a condescending a-hole to his own daughter, as well.
Though really, retconning is the least of this arc’s woes. Society expects parents to love their children, so this “stunning revelation” that an a$$hole loved his daughter is almost like finding out Hitler liked dogs.
We got off easy. This arc could have been weeks of Les reading from his book, accompanied by sepia toned pictures with those annoying photo corners.
Tomorrow it dawns on Jessica that she has never actually said the word “chess” in her life…
While one presumes it is intended to endearing, John Darling, Her father who was murdered, comment to her comes across as just snide as hell.
You know this strip is one panel away from being a story about how John Darling was such an asshole that he even molested his own daughter.
Thankfully, Batiuk does not have that type of imagination to come up with that type of plot twist.
You notice that Batominc often lectures his readership that comic books are great art. Not so much comic strips, eh?
Howard and Nester: We’d add an “anticlimax” tag, however we feel it’s sort of redundant, like a “really shitty” or “awful” or “nauseating” tag would be.
@Flummoxicated: Was Jessica a baby, or a 10-year-old, when her father, John Darling, was killed?
According to this August 2011 strip, a baby. Until she was turned into a 10-year-old:
Well, this wouldn’t be the first time a temporal shift attected the strip. I expect that at some point, having to transit between the Crankshaft and Winkerbean time frames will end up killing someone. Let’s hope it’s Les, Funky or Ed Crankshaft.
Maybe Jessica meant “baby” in the metaphorical sense, ie, someone spoiled, inept or emotionally needy (“Don’t be such a baby!”).
Which I guess means John Darling could have been murdered as early as last week,
https://twitter.com/theisb/status/461388236913651713
Oh yeah, Chris? We may be “weird” but we’re nothing compared to FW itself. Read the strip for one full month, then you tell me.
But I do obsess over it, that I can’t deny.
Mr. Sims, its not that we obsess over a hatred of FW, but that we obsess over a narcissistic, pompous, navel gazing “author”. We can’t look away from the horror of the train wreck of a strip for, but not limited to:
1) inconsistent artwork frequently from one panel to the next.
2) the failure to finish story lines in a logical and/or satisfactory manner.
3) his favorite plot device, Deus ex Machina
4) his torture of the English language
5) characters that act in the most inconceivable brain damage way possible
6) shoehorning in characters to “make” a point only to have them vanish never to be seen again.
7) the regular characters have been turned into such douches that his cardboard mustache twirling villains are the ones we root for
8) we don’t know if the reason he constantly recons the strip is because
a) he can’t remember the strip continuity
b) he thinks no one will notice the inconstancies
c) he just a lazy, lazy writer
I’m sure the regulars here can easily add to this list. However; please come join our merry band of malcontents it can be quite therapeutic.
@TFH–did you spring for the deluxe access to Comics Kingdom with the extended backlog of strips? If so, yea or nay?
Chris Sims, if people don’t recognize the name, does the monthly Funky and Crankshaft wrapups for Comics Alliance (now not closed!).
One may note in passing that posting 10 strips out of a month’s content, ~30%, manages somehow to be “fair use” enough to not get the Batiukian classic Cease & Desist.
@bad wolf: Nope. Since starting SoSF, I’ve been maintaining my own archive of strips, harvesting them weekly from the web and Google searching for older strips. I’m not about to shell out my hard-earned dough though it would be nice to have access to specific dates rather than having to scrounge.