“Nice job, Jess”…obtaining a working VCR? Managing to insert the tape properly? Or is Boy Lisa implying that they’re actually watching Jessica’s completed JD documentary and if so, huh? Did I miss something while I was trying to tune out the incessant Barbie-ing? She stopped filming WEEKS ago, so in short, what the f*ck is he talking about? But hey, she made it back home without losing an arm or becoming seriously interested in comic books, so maybe she merits a “good job” after all. Gotta consider the “big picture”, I suppose.
“You’re Barbie”, “I’m Barbie”, “I’m you’re Barbie”, “you’re my Barbie”…ENOUGH ALREADY WE GET THE POINT! I mean wow, this is overkill even by FW standards. Four straight days of it, too, just sheer bludgeoning repetition solely for the sake of it. He’s actually patting himself on the back repeatedly during a self-congratulatory/vanity project arc based on an old comic strip he used to write…now that’s self-absorption on a grand scale.
So what did we learn here? Well for starters, Jessica IS Barbie! We also learn that Jess is quite easily distracted, never follows through on anything and cannot be counted upon to recall her own memories correctly without video verification. But a long-dead character cared about her very much and in the Funkyverse that’s what matters most of all, no?
That rendition of Skyler’s head in panel one merits immediate inclusion in the SoSF Hall Of Fame and if it isn’t unanimous I will be quite disappointed. Spectacular, it’s like a moonrise.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Well, this arc has been a typical Funky Winkerbean arc–answering questions no one would ever ask.
It would be one thing if the “Barbie” thing were a bit from Jessica’s past that had always haunted her, and was thus the impetus for making the doco after all…only to have her mother show these tapes and the doll house that JD bought for when she was older.
While still nauseatingly sentimental, at least there;s a story there. Instead we get this sheer awfulness, in which the only point seems to be to allow Jessica her delusions and allow Tom Batiuk to “rehabilitate” his John Darling character from someone who at least had a personality (however unpleasant) into another meaningless blob of nothingness.
Yes, nice job, Jess. After completely failing to get any relevant or interesting footage for your documentary, you dug up some old home movies and called it good. You’re a regular Ken Burns, sure enough.
Who or what is holding Boy Lisa Jr. up? Boy Lisa Sr. obviously isn’t doing it, and it looks like an awkward angle for Jess to have him in her arms. Does the couch have one of those fold-down arm rests? Is he levitating by the sheer virtue of being directly descended from BSD Lisa herself?
It looks like “Lisa’s Story” has some stiff competition. For what I don’t know and don’t want to know.
Jessica was an “Idiot Enfant!” Smart enough as a toddler to call her Dad by his first name(?) but too stupid to remember to film the documentary she was filming.
Skyler is taking all of this in with dread knowing full well he will henceforth be referred to as in “Mommy and Daddy love little iPhone.” “Does Darin love iPhone?” etc.
Eh…trying really hard to find something to hate in this arc, but its hard getting past how I feel. Having gotten my ticket punched to the Dead Dad’s Club at 5 years old, I can see wanting some sort of identity to the man I never knew, be it good or bad. At least JD loved something in his life with a passion…other than himself.
Now…bring on that smug, smirking dick Les Moore, so I can get back to my usual loathing.
This is bullshit. Less Barbie, more Khan!
Yeah. Nice job. You’ve proved that a short-tempered, rude, insensitive and abysmally ill-informed nitwit had a soft spot for the one person he didn’t see as somehow being either a threat or an obstacle. Next, you can prove that acceleration due to gravity is thirty-two feet per second per second or that the boiling point of water is two hundred and twelve degrees Fahrenheit.
Seriously, the only way this is a good job is if he’s complimenting Daddy’s Little Epsilon Double Minus for remembering to take off the lens cap.
And once more a FW plotline ends with an inexplicable victory lap for the smug.
Well, that’s all well and good, but when are they going to reveal the identify of this mysterious “Barbie” woman that Plantman mentioned?
I’ve been playing the Barbie drinking game this week. I’ll be in rehab for the next month.
So, what, Ken killed John Darling in a fit of jealous rage? What just happened here?
It’s strips like this that remind you that John Darling was a television interviewer for over a decade…
Meanwhile, over in Crankshaft, Chuck Ayers draws Funky’s face on a balloon and calls it a day.
The time warp enveloping Westview is getting even worse, Jessica looked 11 or 12 yesterday and today she’s back to 3 on the same VCR tape.
I suppose Jess deserves praise considering she found a working VCR and it’s supposed to be something like 2025 in the current Funkyverse.
Well, at least now Batiuk can go back to using Les or Cindy to show us how poorly he understands publishing or television.
I will place a small bet that if we see Plantman again, it will be on footage that Jessica inexplicably filmed despite having her camera shut away in its case the whole time.
Someone needs to notify Batominc that the self-esteem movement is over. He is not special. Les is not special. Summer (remember her?) is not special. Jessica is not special.
Now, John Darling was special, an unapologetic, unregenerate egomaniac. Batominc has ruined his one and only interesting character by retconning him a heart of schmaltz.
Unlike the Wellesley class of 2012, the special snowflakes of Westview aren’t even ordinary. They’re objectively below average, yet each of them imagines that they’ve hit nothing but home runs, scored all the winning touchdowns, impossibly won Oscars for TV movies, and made the world safe for comic books.
These “character learns long-dead character loved them” arcs are an old Act III standby, although until now they always involved Lisa. I mean the first 5 years of Act III pretty much centered around Les or Summer seeking closure, so I suppose that trope is played out. The solution? More dead characters! This strip needs a plane crash or a radiation incident or a tragic comic book fire to cull the herd and open up some new material for the Batom Inc. writing crew.
Accidentally clicked the wrong hand on oddnoc’s post above. Should have been a thumbs up, sorry.