Serious Monet

I don’t recall Pete looking like an impressionist work of abstract art but he certainly has some strange proportions in today’s strip as he hands her something that looks like chimpanzee cranked out in 5 minutes.

Maybe I should give Pete a break, since he’s a WRITER and not an artist, or is he suddenly an artist now? I think the blobby mess he just handed her indicates at least someone needs more art school.

Well, while we’re comic art geeking out, might as well share The 40 Worst Rob Leifeld Drawings for at least some laughs.

15 thoughts on “Serious Monet”

  1. Boy Lisa and Jessica moving out? That seems highly unlikely given how Darin is still shuttling Montoni’s pies around town and Jessica has foregone her Hollywood dreams in favor of loafing about and maybe filming the local rubes for kicks every once in a while if she feels like it. I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

    So she has successfully secured the Holy Grail, the key Amazing Mister Sponge splash page she’s going to use to bait Chester “The Chiseler” Hagglemore into handing over those key missing issues of Starbuck Jones she needs to finish off Corporal Cory’s comic collection. The funny thing is that as dumb as the previous sentence is, in real life it’ll play out way, way dumber than it sounds. And the events I needed one sentence to describe will take WEEKS to play out, too, once you account for the mindless smirking and brainless babbling required in every FW arc.

  3. Dear Son of Stuck Funky Forum: I always thought your letters were made up, but something happened recently and I’m going to have to revise my previous criticism!

    I was walking around town the other day when I saw a comic-book shop. It was kind of hot out and it looked like there was a fan inside, so I walked in out of the heat and browsed a bit. Naturally, the guy behind the counter never said anything but would pointedly look my way and yawn dramatically every now and then. Amazingly enough, I found a copy of both Fantastic Four number 1, and Amazing Fantasy number 15! Both in near mint condition! (AF 15 was the first appearance of Spider-Man.)

    I couldn’t see any prices on either, so I walked over to the counter and laid them down. “You know,” I began, “I have two nephews in the armed services…” (This is true in real life, by the way.)

    The counter guy’s eyes just widened. “Okay,” he said quietly, “everything in the shop is yours.” He bagged the two comics, handed me everything in the cash drawer, and then gave me the key to the front door. “I’m outta here,” he said as he waved goodbye. “Thank your nephews for their service!”

    Well, I fully intend to! As soon as I can find a way to unload all these Starbuck Jones comics. The owner had box after box of these things, labelled “Rare” and “Really Rare” and “A month’s Rent.” Did that title ever sell at all?

  4. Ladies and gentlemen (I assume you exist), please allow me to introduce the Funky Winkerbean drinking game!

    Whenever someone says some combination of “my father” and “Jon Darling” take a drink.

    Whenever Holly is given something for free that requires no major effort or reflection on her part, take a drink.
    Take two if the thing she is given is a Starbuck Jones comic.

    Any time John or Harry go deep into obscure facts about comic books, take a drink.
    Take two if Harry also expresses contempt for the confused person they’re talking to.

    Every time a character talks about how enjoyable comic books and the search for comic books is, take a drink.

    Every time we see a hallucinatory cat talk to Les without any kind of explanation or relevance to the plot that couldn’t be replaced by a mirror, take a drink.

    Any time a minor character reappears in the story just to show that their fortunes have sunk and they have to go back to what little they had before, take a drink.

    Any time a minor character is brought back for any reason without any explanation as to who they are or why they’re relevant, take a drink.

    Every time a teenager appears, only to exist so an adult can say something to them or they can react to an adult saying something, take a drink.

    Any time the writer appears to have failed to do any basic research on the subject he is writing about, take a drink.

    Any time Cayla gives the reader the impression that she’s just a secretary with a crush on Les, take a drink.

    Any time a character ends up with a problem that could be solved in real life in under 24 hours just by using common sense, take a sip. Not a drink, a sip. A full drink for every single one would kill you.

    Any time a deus ex machina appears to solve a character’s problem (besides Holly) take a drink.
    Take two if it includes something tailor made to solve the problem even though the maker of the deus ex machina could never have predicted the problem.

    Any time an arc revolving around Lisa shows up, finish the bottle. Not as part of the game, as a means of escape.

    Any I missed?

  5. I hate to be That Guy but isn’t it awfully strange that Pete looks like he and Holly went to high school together? Batiuk might be all about how the Evil City exists to crush decent small-town people because that’s what outsiders do but this is pushing it.

    Also, we at least know what one young adult will be doing next week: trying to get Chester to be a nice person and hand her a comic book for free instead of acting like a real businessman and expecting to make a profit.

  6. It’s odd that John and Pete want to see Cory complete his collection, when you consider that he used to throw rocks at their cars any time he saw them.

  7. ..aaaaaaaaaaand just like that, Mopey Pete gets fired from his job for someone more younger and more up to date comic artists. Which leave Mopey Pete with no other recourse but to move back into Westview and attempt to hit on Summer. Which should be easy since they are practically identical to each other.

    You see…..Nobody ever really “leaves” Westview.
    They just delay your inevitable return.
    Kind of like death. You try to avoid it, but eventually you have to embrace it.

    On that note…I’m now going to take a bubble bath with my toaster. Thanks Batiuk for cheering my morning up.

  8. Not much “splash” in an Amazing Mister Sponge splash page, I would think.

    Why am I more interested in Mister Sponge’s backstory than in this current FW arc?
    Is he really mild-mannered car wash attendant Sam I. Permeable by day? Were his amazing sponge powers passed down through generations, from (Os) Moses, who used them to part the Red Sea for the Israelites?

  10. I’d be interested if any of these Starbuck Jones strips have a point.

    It sure has nothing to do with work. Holly just blithely goes here and there and gets everything for free, with the exception of one for a dollar and an eBay auction, final bid unknown. Are these comics really that valuable if people give them away without a second thought? “Oh well, since you drove over here, how about a Starbuck Jones comic.” Imagine how much it must have cost to drive to New York City, when Pete could have just mailed this thing (or better yet, brought it with him to Westview when he’s inevitably fired).

    What’s the damned point of all this? Is Tom Batiuk just lazier than I can imagine and wants to celebrate that?

  11. I think that the whole point of this is, sadly, for Corey to return home and wonder why his mom went to all that trouble in the first place. Nothing like a fetch quest that goes unrewarded.

  12. Re: Starbuck Jones. The way I remember it is that SJ was an unpopular and very short-lived title which is why issue #1 was very scarce and collectable in the first place. Young Funky would have never purchased #1 if Old Funky hadn’t told him to, which was the entire point of that long multi-week arc. Now though, it ran for over a hundred issues (which if it ran monthly would amount to at least eight or nine years), everyone in town is familiar with it and it’s even popular with those kids today. So basically he’s just making it all up as he goes along while totally ignoring relatively recent strip continuity yet again.

    Now as far as this Mister Sponge thing goes, I have no idea how far that goes back as I missed a lot of Pete in his Act II heyday. FW was a lot more maddening and preachy back then (mostly due to Lisa) and it’d drive me away for years at a time every so often. I know he was more or less Darin’s WHS sidekick during Act II but I don’t remember a lot of specifics about him or his fictitious comic title.

  13. The entire point of the Starbuck Jones collecting is that Batiuk asked some friends/idols in the superhero comic biz to draw covers for the fictional strip and he needs a way to showcase them. That’s it.

  14. Rusty: It’s just kind of curious how he’s ignoring the significance of SJ #1 in the strip. Then again, expecting Batiuk to tie up loose threads in a clever way is foolish, I suppose.

Comments are closed.