Once again, technology, not limited to and including digital cameras, emails, faxes, overnight packages and scanners don’t exist in Westview, necessitating a long car ride for Holly to visit Pete to look at some original art of Mister Sponge that she thinks she can trade for the last couple Starbucks Jones comics she needs. Wow, as today’s strip, shows, this stuff writes itself!
Actually, this isn’t a bad ploy, Holly.. not a bad ploy at all.
I mean, I someone I sort of knew showed up at my doorstep having just driven 800 miles and said their adult son who is in the military collected comic books and hey, could I give up my signed George Lucas Lightsaber so she could trade it for the last two comics he needed, I’d have to have a heart of stone to say no.
I’m betting Holly’s lip can quiver with the best of them when faced with the prospect of driving back to Ohio without the original Mister Sponge art she needs.
All of this sounds convoluted and insane. How do we even know Hagglemore *likes* or *wants* anything to do with Mr. Sponge? Sorry, lady, I only collect D.C..
You would think Holly would have at least spoken with the guy before driving across the country to hassle Pete.
Son of Stuck Funky 
That was a rather abrupt leap, wouldn’t you say? She’s going all the way to NYC to pick up her key splash page in person? Will it be slabbed bagged and tagged for her or is she expected to slab bag and tag the key splash page herself? And what about the toppers?
This whole scenario is so sub-moronic. Even the wry smirking banter is more idiotic than usual today. The way he always finds new inventively boring ways to drag out these excruciating mega-arcs is amazing, isn’t it?
As I said yesterday, Batiuk knows all about fax machines, Skype, digital cameras, cloud storage, Fed Ex and all the other things that Holly would use in the NORMAL course of events. The teacher he used to be simply don’t hold with’em and wants to show us ignorant young whippersnappers how we should be conducting business. This is, after all, a man who thinks of Funky and Holly as BEING young adults because his and his friends’ kids are that age.
Heh. For all our talk about how Les is his alter ego, it sometimes occurs to me that his real second self is Ed Crankshaft.
“Too theatrical.” Damn, this strip will go out of its way to avoid anything associated to drama, won’t it?
This strip looks like Pluggers as written by a comics convention panel doing Mad Libs.
I’d say the whole damn thing is too theatrical. Invoking the Theatre of the Absurd, Battick tries desperately to squeeze laughs out an obscure comic book reference. Well, obscure to us lay people – those of us who don’t buy into the elitist comic-book-hipster lifestyle. In any event, the whole idea of Holly traveling to New York (hallowed ground for Les) for who knows what cheap gimcrack of a drawing Pete can produce about SomefuckingSponge is beyond absurd – it’s insane. Of course, there may be behind-the-scenes actions (like maybe making contacts, obtaining information and making deals) of which we are kept blissfully unaware. Meanwhile, the story skips along like a flat rock on a pond, except in excruciatingly slow motion. The overall result is more a Theatre of the Nut-Boys.
I thought the whole idea of this storyline, from the beginning, was that comic books were awesome and everyone should love them. Apparently, we are to be led to that belief via Starbuck Jones and the Amazing Mister Sponge. (I bet his super-power is that he sucks.)
Meanwhile, Funky casually tosses off a joke about damaging a Frank Miller comic. Even I know that Frank Miller is one of the big guns in comics, a guy who is usually spoken of in the same category as Lee, Kirby, Alan Moore, et al.
Imagine the looks on the faces of DSH John and Crazy Harry if it was even casually suggested that a Frank Miller comic be whimsically damaged. Given the fact that they are not about to tolerate the Amazing Mister Sponge being referred to by anything other than his full name, they’d probably both drop dead of shock.
Unless the ideas are “Amazing Mister Sponge–thought up by Tom Batiuk–therefore awesome” and “Frank Miller–well-known HACK.”
Holy Grail…Indiana Jones had to undergo less trials than Holly has.
I think I ‘ve stumbled upon the real reason Holly is so intent on completing the collection: She has absolutely nothing else to do!!
Seriously, what else does she do in this strip?
I
Seriously, what else does she do in this strip?
Well, since Batiuk stopped making her the butt of idiot cheerleader jokes, not much. Absorbing snippy comments from Harry is a step up from ‘hole in the air.’
“Well, I’m off to New York seeking my comic book holy grail…”
There’s a master of his craft all right. I wonder what he does with the time he saves from not having to come up with plausible expository dialogue. No doubt it’s terribly important, so I’m sure it has something to do with comic books or cancer fun runs.