At long last, Starbuck Jones himself appears in the strip, and proves to be just as much a dick as everyone else. Of course, this behavior was entirely expected.
Also expected: contact with Westviewians turns Monday’s happy, sleepy-eyed merchant into a bitter scowler. And readers into head-scratchers.
The thing is, you cannot have issue #115 of Starbuck Jones so rare that it is snatched up instantly when it makes a rare appearance, while simultaneously making it nothing special, a comic you throw into a box to be thumbed at. Which is it? “These comics have been going like hot cakes. Notice I said going like hot cakes, not selling like hot cakes. They were getting all gooey and rancid, so I threw them into this box because I hate hot cakes!”
I know it’s hard for ordinary, non-Pulitzer-nominated people to remember long, long ago, back to Monday’s strip–that’s almost, like, caveman days, right? But you’ll recall Holly had a list. On Tuesday she was pawing through a box. What happened in between? “Oh, you’ve got a list? Let me see. Starbuck Jones #115. Since the Starbuck Jones comics have been selling like crazy, you might try looking through these bargain-bin comics. I always keep my rare stuff in there, because I’m a maverick who thinks outside the (long) box.”
A lazy answer is that the Starbuck Jones series has a rabid cult of fans (enough so that some studio has an interest in making a movie), but the general comic-book public never warmed to it. So the fans look for issues, but no one else does. Might as well put it in the box, one of those idiots will buy it. Again, it’s a lazy answer. And I guess we’re all used to lazy answers here.
But the inconsistency is ridiculous. For anyone trying to tell a story, this is not the way to do it. This is the way a five-year-old tells stories. “But werewolves aren’t affected by crosses!” “Wait, did I say he was a werewolf? I meant he was a vampire werewolf!”
Speaking of lazy answers, whatever happened to the Funky Winkerbean blurb at Comic Kingdom, telling us it was a strip that detailed the sensitive problems of contemporary young adults in a detailed manner? I guess they just figured, “If you have to know what Funky Winkerbean is, well, abandon all hope…”
Son of Stuck Funky 
It’s still on the Seattle PI FW page.
And the Denver Post.
Glad to see it still around — great creative writing (better than anything found in the strip itself).
On the plus side, the schadenfreude I got out of Holly’s dismayed expression in panel three is the first genuine enjoyment I’ve had from this entire arc.
Just fucking awful.
the look on holly’s face in the 3rd panel gives me unbridled joy.
Oh, I see. It wasn’t Holly’s shocking stupidity or the work of an evil interloper that cruelly snatched issue #115 from her meaty sweaty paw. It was something far, far worse…TECHNOLOGY! You see, back in the good old days you didn’t need some damned credit card to buy a comic book. You’d just amble on down to your local corner store and give kindly old Mr. Johnson a dime and boom, you had a comic book. Then these greedy nerds came along and took over the hobby, turning it into just another modern-day plastic hassle. Everything sure does suck nowadays, you know?
I’m surprised Holly bothered to bring her credit card to Comic-Con. Wasn’t she expecting to get Starbuck Jones #115 for free?
Well can’t use the ComicsKingdom page. It keeps claiming that there is no page for today’s strip, even though I know that when I finally do get to it I’ll see comments that are forty minutes or older. Because that’s what’s happened every single time for about a week now. I hate that site, I really do.
And turns out that this comic wasn’t one of those misprints after all. Because why use continuity when you can just have people be assholes to each other. Oh wait, this is FW. Whenever there is any question about anything, assume people will default to one of two modes. Either mindlessly helping main character achieve their goals (specifically Cayla in anything related to writing about Lisa), or being assholes who actively prevent them from achieving their goals.
I still use the NJ.com comics page, still updates at midnight eastern.
My guess is that someone put a hold on her account because he doesn’t approve of it.
“the look on holly’s face in the 3rd panel gives me unbridled joy.”
The funky smirk is probably a limited quantity item. It’s been used for two days straight in Crankshaft, so maybe it will return tomorrow, or after she ends up getting the comic for free after the latest deus ex machina.
“My guess is that someone put a hold on her account because he doesn’t approve of it.”
The hotel likely put on a temp charge that maxed her card out. That is, until someone at the hotel hears her story and gives her the whole bill gratis.
That would also be another good time for the funky smirk to return so that the funkyfans can laugh at the trolls and identity thieves.
Haven’t been here in a while. Glad to see you’re all still alive; lesser snarkers would have long since starved to death on this tedious, tedious arc.
I can hardly wait to see next summer’s blockbuster: “Lust For Starbuck”…
“While I check with my BANK,” would have been a much more natural, fluid way to say this first sentence. This awful author continues to have no ear for natural dialog.
And why has nobody pointed out that the dude swiping the comic has a gigantic erection?
“wasn’t approved”…
In a comic that wallows in misery and pestilence, TB felt the need to euphemize the word “declined”.
Applause for panel 3, though. It is a genuinely funny bit of artwork, particularly the three facial expressions. The comic seller’s heavy-lidded countenance would indicate that grinning cosplaying maniacs rip valuable comics out of his hands on a fairly regular basis.
As CK commenters “new diss” and “Godda Bonar” pointed out, if you examine the green spaceman’s crotchal region (panel 3), you will observe a detail that you can never unsee.
To put things into perspective, this would be the equivalent of a coin dealer placing a 1955 double die penny into the “miscellaneous wheat penny” bin.
Since I’ve got no idea what that is, I’ll assume it means roughly this for anything who plays the Magic card game.
It’s the equivalent of putting a Black Lotus in the Lands box.
And of god I shouldn’t have looked. I mean, I know it’s just some weird lines, but why were they drawn on his pants in the first place?
Oddnoc – curse your eyes. Still i must say he does seem to be very excited about getting his hands on that comic book – or is it because he gets to be a dick to another human being?
I would suggest that Holly might be the victim of identity fraud, but that would means she has an identity in the first place.