To tide you over while we wait for Tuesday’s strip to go live, I offer an “appetizer” of sorts: a new Tom Batiuk interview in which he discusses the Starbuck Jones project.
Batiuk’s All-Star Team Brings “Funky Winkerbean’s” Starbuck Jones To Life
Month: June 2014
Doctor My Ass
If script doctor “Ken Casey’s” name is a play on “Ben Casey“, TB’s crafted yet another hoary cultural reference that’s sure to elicit a chuckle from those readers who appreciate “Jungle Jim toppers”. But it’s still better than naming him after a porn star (see “Mason Jarr“).
Mala Adaptation
Hey all! TFHackett here, slingin’ the summertime snark for the next se’nnight or two. Let me start by offering kudos to Epicus Doomus, and to David O, Oddnoc, and Beckoning Chasm, the Murderer’s Row of snark, for their brilliant contributions to SoSF!
Readers, remember how we’d bemoan Batiuk’s habit of weekly skipping from arc to arc, without ever resolving any of them? Well, the first half of 2014 has been taken up mainly by “Holly’s Kwest for Kory’s Komix” and “The Making of Lisa’s Story” (with a month-long detour into “Jessica’s Father, John Darling,” which at least was resolved, albeit in incredibly lame fashion).
Like TB, I have no working knowledge of the made-for-TV-movie making process, and I can’t wait for those of you who do to gauge exactly how many “quarter-inches from reality” today’s strip is.
Les meets the director and principal cast of “Lust for Lisa” (guess that wildly inappropriate title is going to stick), none of who can be bothered to stand and greet him. “Seth Wheeler” looks and sounds plausible enough. Then we meet “Mason Jarr”, har-dee-har-har (they couldnt afford Robert Downey Jr.). Mason’s no physical match for the real Les, but he’s already working on his disdainful smirk. “Sherry Carlyle” is a closer physical match to the titular character…and when I say “titular” I’m not talking about her bazoombas!
And who’s the peanut head? Why, he’s the catalyst for today’s “punchline,” which in addition to being unfunny and leaden, is pretty cynical. Assuming that “Fox Spanish” is the IRL Mundo Fox, it’s not likely they have room on their schedule for a made for TV weeper, with or without a written-in token Latino character.
Jump! Go Ahead And Jump!
Don’t let that felt-tip cash checks your ass can’t cover, Batty. Seeing Les Moore explode all over the pavement like an overripe tomato is one of my fondest dreams, so if you’re going to have Les kill himself because his cancer book isn’t being properly recognized as the greatest artistic achievement in the history of man then DO IT ALREADY because the whining is just insufferable to the point of insanity. I HATE people who talk talk talk and never do do do. So jump, you asshole but slit your wrists, douse yourself with gasoline and light a match before you do just in case the impact isn’t enough to do the job. We have to be 100% sure here, this isn’t something we want to leave to chance.
First-class accomodations across the board. The chance to write his very own “Lisa’s Story” TV movie. His own office and an assistant. And all during his summer vacation, no less. Could things possibly be any worse for the dick with ears? Oh, the humanity. I’m still not grasping why Les can’t remember his very own Hollywood fantasy sequence from a few years back, the one where he predicted this outcome almost exactly. But that’s TB’s trademark, he never lets annoying things like continuity get in his way. And then there’s his other trademark, that being an incredible gift for finding ways to use the exact same material over and over again, especially if it involves Les and that goddamned cancer book that never goes the f*ck away.
I’m seriously thinking about putting together one of those online money-gathering schemes to fund a TV movie about how tawdry and insane the comic strip business is. You know, how it’s all about the money and how it’s filled entirely with lazy brainless hacks with smarmy annoying attitudes. The plot will involve a whiny comic strip writer who’s been tabbed for a screen adaptation of his work but ruins it for himself by complaining about every single aspect of the process. I’m pitcuring an insightful and not-at-all stupid look into how that comic strip business REALLY works. The lead character will NOT be based on Les Moore, though, as I’d ideally want someone to actually watch it.
Thelma And Ennuis
Today sees Tombat trying way, way too hard to drive home his “point” about how horrible “Hollywood” is yet again, this time via “Thelma”, Clay Wallace’s awful, rude, somewhat mysterious and clearly miserable office drone. Man, if that woman (she IS a woman…right?) isn’t a born Westviewian I don’t know who is, she’d fit right in at WHS, Montoni’s or the front desk at the local cancer hospital without missing a beat. Awful hair, worse attitude, obnoxiously rude…forget about those “Hollywood starlets on the make” because Thelma is the REAL threat, a woman seemingly MADE for Les Moore. Methinks they’ll get along wonderfully as they attack the business at hand.
Of course I have no idea what that business might entail, as Batom has wasted the entire week with a bunch of nonsensical and unrelated babbling, but still. I’m sure he’ll get to the “script doctor” and the “table read” eventually and then maybe this idiotic tale might start to become somewhat coherent. And then again, maybe it won’t. Either way, it won’t really matter as we all know this idiocy will end with Les sitting on that crappy porch swing ruminating over how turning down that filthy Hollywood loot was the only real choice he had because of Lisa and his “art” and so on and so forth. Dopey premise, weeks of pointless repetition and senseless yammering, quick and cheap “resolution”, that’s the time-tested FW formula responsible for churning out all this fantastic art over the years. Why tamper with success, you know? Sigh.
Son of Stuck Funky 
