Because today’s strip wasn’t available at editing time, I’ll go all meta and describe my SOSF workflow. If you don’t care about such geekery, feel free to skip to the comments and snark away! Cheers!
I don’t like editing posts directly in a web browser, because I don’t like rich web editors or plain text fields for writing, and I really don’t like losing a bunch of work due to a silly web error or browser crash. Also, I like working in Markdown.
I made a little template (just a simple markdown file with all the relevant bits of a SOSF post), so when I start a stint as guest-snarker, I copy that into a folder and modify it for the first strip in my series. On each subsequent day, I duplicate the previous day’s file to make a starting point for the new post.
I put the title and tags up in the markdown metadata headers so that I don’t forget them. Because they’re in the metadata, when I export to HTML, they don’t mess up the actual body of the post. Looks like this:
Title: No One Mourns the Comics
Tags: Holly, Chester the Chiseler, Comics
Because
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.nj.com/comics-kingdom/?…
I then separately paste the title, tags, and body into the corresponding fields in WordPress.
I’m on a Mac, and use Byword to edit my markdown and Marked to preview and export it to HTML. Because Byword is also on iOS, I often start a post in Byword on an iPad.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Wally used to be a virtual firestorm of wild contrivances and unspeakable misfortune, but now he’s pretty damned bland and boring. Thus TheAuthor made sure to save his blandest and most boring trope of all for the big wedding…torrential rain. He even managed to squeeze a f*cking band joke in there too. Much like his pathetic proposal, this wedding is certain to be a complete debacle featuring a lot of wry, weary “such are the trials of this life” gags. AND everyone will be soaking wet! It’s the “perfect FW storm”: a random loose-thread plot featuring forgettable characters doing boring things in the rain at the gazebo.
Is that Chester in the audience?
My usual guest host routine is along the lines of Oh this is the last of Epicus’ run. Oh GOD. Oh God I’ve got to write about Funky Winkerbean. Why has the universe abandoned me. Then I drink heavily. And I write the posts in the WordPress editor. Because I exhibit the same level of caring and craftsmanship as the Pulitzer-nominated author of Funky Winkerbean.
When I’m guest hosting I tend to prefer the more unusual arcs, like Khan or Frankie or something that’s at least a bit different than “Funky jogs” or “Owen doesn’t like pop quizzes”. But that’s part of the challenge, you never know what you’re gonna get. I don’t really relish those Sunday “homage” strips either, they’re never funny yet they’re never really awful enough to really shred.
I actually like getting Les arcs too, it’s a chance to use a lot of colorful adjectives and really unleash the hate. Although by Thursday I’m usually singing a different tune.
When I wrote yesterday’s headline, I had no idea he was going to literally do lines from Alanis Morrisette songs. Once again, I’ve overestimated Batominc.
Dead Skunk Head’s dead skunk head has never looked worse than it does in panel 1. Batinkerbean has lowered the bar. Again…
Ah, well. At least it’s just a monsoon. Perhaps he’ll simply have flashbacks to band practice this time.
We know the camera does not work in the sun, or when the lens is blocked. Today we should find out if it is rainproof.
John: “Seriously, two people are getting married. Starting a new life together…and the -only- thing Tom can choose to fixate on is a senseless callback to a senseless joke that has no relevance to anything anymore? Is he high?!?”
Becky: “Precipitation is something that exists! Things existing are FUNNY. Therefore, reminding people that rain exists=HILARITY!”
John: “Also, um, where are our kids? Considering, you know, the bio-dad of o-”
Becky: “Rain rain rain! Pour pour pour! Funny funny funny!”
Jess has already taped more footage for the wedding than she did for My Father, John Darling, Was Murdered: A Documentary.
“Is that Chester in the audience?”
That, or Daddy Warbucks figured he had time to do a cameo in FW while he is guest-starring in Dick Tracy.
And since skunk heads have already been brought up, check out the scalp on Pepe Le Pew there between Lefty and DSH in panel 1. Is that supposed to be Tony?
Jess is getting a great shot of the squall line bearing down on the festivities. That will certainly set the tone for the wedding video. Welcome to “everybody piss on Wally’s wedding” week!! Tomorrow is Buddy’s turn.
So what next? A free ride when they’ve already paid?
Weather, amirite? Hee-larious.
Today’s strip illustrates everything that is loathsome about FW.
For all that we snark on the atmosphere of gloom and despair in this comic, we also are acutely aware that real life is in fact much, much worse.
Batiuk’s take on the miseries of life is to distort them into idiotic cartoonish caricatures. For those of us in his audience who have experienced some of the bad life events he purports to depict, his work is neither funny nor insightful. It is offensive.
I suppose Batiuk couldn’t bring himself to trash two of his favorite characters, Becky and John, in any semblance of sympathetic adherence to reality in his portrayal of the Return of Wally and its aftermath. “What aftermath?” you may well ask. Well, hmm … a Sunday strip was devoted to Becky’s wistful reflections of Wally. He gave him his trombone back. She put Rachel onto Puppies Behind Bars. When asked by Rachel about Wally’s drinking, basically blamed the failure of their marriage on it, and the accident which claimed her Arm. In real life, she would have been wracked with guilt. Likewise, consider John, whose response (both) times he learned that his romantic rival was not in fact dead, was to become morose because he thought he would lose Becky. Never a moment of examination of his conscience over this, like any decent person would do?
It offends me that Batiuk seems to think I should be sympathetic to these two characters, when his narrative has caused me to despise them.