Because today’s strip is about comical books, Mr. Oddnoc has enlisted perennial sophomores Owen and Cody to do the daily commentary. They will provide the puerile perspective and gravitas that Batominc bloviating about comic books warrants.
Cody: Doesn’t John have a bunch of Starbuck Jones books?
Owen: Yeah, he says they’re not worth much, but there’s a guy up in Stately Manor, Ohio, who overpays for ’em.
Cody: Mr. Oddnoc says we’re in this comic strip. Thats f——ed up!
Owen: Dude, dude, who talks like that: “which makes the issues ultra-rare and difficult to find”?
Cody: Mister—ha ha!—Mister—snort!—I—I—can’t—hahaha…
Owen: Hee hee! M—M—M—Moooooooooooooore!
Oddnoc (aside): The kids are alright.
Son of Stuck Funky 
You win TB. I’ll be sitting the rest of this one out.
“Spotty ultra-rare and difficult to find”…there are at least 216 issues and Holly/Cory has all of them except two. If those two dimwits found them, it can’t be THAT tough. And now that Hagglemore has this one, she needs one more which (ugh) means this isn’t quite over yet, unfortunately.
This entire scene makes no sense whatsoever. What did they speak about on the phone before she arrived at stately Hagglemore Manor? Why would she even be there if he didn’t want to make the deal? Batom is just winging this crap as he goes along, “Hagglemore” IS the entire “joke” here, he just needed an excuse to work that bit of cleverness into the strip somehow. Then once he did, he lost the desire to make something coherent out of it.
Haggle is the cousin of Les
As opposed to things that are ultra-rare and can be picked up at every corner store, I guess.
So, how is Holly going to get her hands on this one? Batiuk seems to be trying to play this guy as a villain, so I doubt the “my son is in the Army so I neeeeeeed it” card is going to work this time.
We’re getting two plot holes here. First, if he doesn’t think that her splash page is worth it, why is she even there? I would hope she would have been intelligent enough to at least confirm that the splash page of unknown value could get her the two comics she wants. The second issue, is how the heck did Cory ever get so many of the series?
I’ve pointed out this plot hole before, and every day it seems to just get bigger. We know that Cory had filled an entire box with them. We know that this is supposed to be expensive. We know that Holly said she was going to finish the series for him by collecting the last issues. How did Cory afford the rest of the series?
But I’m sure the apologists will say that we shouldn’t pay any attention to little things like the strips that started the entire stupid arc.
It’s become intolerable.
Think about this: “Starbuck Jones”, a Batom Comics production, was an obscure, unpopular and mostly unknown comic book with a dumb name that inexplicably had an astonishingly long run given the general malaise associated with it. Remind you of anything?
“What did they speak about on the phone before she arrived at stately Hagglemore Manor? Why would she even be there if he didn’t want to make the deal?”
She called him, and he heard the name “Holly Winkerbean,” a real GIRL name (like the concept of the Jean Shepherd girl name).
So he had these visions of a gorgeous, untouchable lusty cheerleader type type appearing at his gate willing to do ANYTHING to get those copies.
Then he saw the real thing in the CCTV camera at the gate and told her to go away. But she threatened to slash the splash page, not her own throat.
And since he treasured the splash page more than the blond lump who was at the gate, he let her in, but only for the sake of the splash page.
And to insult her later on………………..sort of like Oprah Winfrey looking at bags in Paris………………………………….
“How did Cory afford the rest of the series?”
Well, there was at least one time in high school where he acquired a considerable amount of money via nefarious means.
It’s either that of his job dressed as a pizza earned him much more than we might think…
Gyre, given what we know of Cory, suddenly it appears obvious: he stole all the previous issues.
How did Cory afford the comics? Well, I’ve always had my suspicions about DSH John and his “friendships”
Five bucks says that he proves his evileness by insisting on her paying his outrageously high asking price DESPITE Cory being in Iraqistan. Heh. The one thing that DSH and Crazy forgot to lecture her about is the need to carry Overstate’s Price Guide with her at all times.
Haggle is the cousin of Les’
Or what Les will be when he makes cancer and despair pay off.
Saturnino, the guy is rolling in cash. If he wanted a woman, I don’t think it’d be too hard for him to get one.
Rare and Obscure does not, if memory serve make for high priced collectables – The reason Detective Comics #27 is so prized is that it’s the first apperance of Batman not that there only 11 of them (I forget how many they are suposed to be out there) I have a complete run of an obscure comic series called The Heckler – all 5 issues – which cost me more in shipping than in the comics themselves cost. So really this issue of Starbuck Jones should cost as much as say a sliver age Charlton Blue Beetle would – mabye $25-50 if in amazing condition – but why am i hurting myself trying to apply logic to this strip?
There’s only one satisfactory way this could end: Cory comes home, announces he’s no longer into SJ and trades the complete collection for an Amazing Mister Sponge splash page. Or, alternately, he gets a paper cut from issue 216, it gets infected and he dies. Anything else is just batiuksturbation.
“Hello, my name is Tom Batiuk. And I’d like to talk to you about something that interests me a great deal–collecting old comic books! I’ll illustrate my points by using characters I’ve created that could best be described as ‘uninteresting,’ ‘boring,’ or ‘repellent.’ Some folks will tell you that collecting comic books can be a fun and rewarding experience. Well, folks, not in my world! (chortle)”