Typical Batiuk. Even when his characters have a chance to get what they’ve always wanted, they just wallow in misery because of it.
Premise-flogging and characters who only communicate via puns and wordplay…”How To Succeed In Syndicated Comic Strip Writing Without Even Bothering To Pretend To Be Trying”…starring Pulitzer (nominee) Boy as “The Hack”. And what the hell ever happened to that Jarod Posey kid?
A tag for unnecessary exposition would be redundant.
That second panel is terribly drawn. This whole thing’s a failure all around.
I think that “deja vu” phrase was used wrong.
That’s a new development for Tom Batiuk–taking a possibly humorous situation and trying your damnedest to make it ANTI-FUNNY.
It’s actually kind of amazing in a way.
@ComicTrek: You’re right, wouldn’t deja vu mean they’d already played the game, and Bull was dreaming about it again?
I bet this ends with them somehow winning dramatically, only to be disqualified right after. Flat out losing is exactly what they’re expecting, and winning would be way too positive.
If they won and didn’t have it taken away from them, it’d be like a Medium Large strip that had Charlie Brown deal with actually winning: “That’ll never happen again. I guess I should just stay home and drink more.”
@SpacemanSpiff85: Yeah. Reading through the comments at CK–yeah, READING, since I’ve been banned–I found out that the word he’s looking for is “precognition”.
This strip is past gone.
Welcome to Westview, where even your dreams and fantasirs are of bitter, bitter failure.
TB is getting either product placement money or a cease-and-desist letter from The Dr. Pepper-Snapple Group for today’s punchline.
Deja Blew
And tomorrow Batiuk will receive notice that he’s being sued by Dr. Pepper/Snapple Group for infringing on the trademarked name of their brand of bottled water.
Look at Bull’s eyebrows in the last panel, no level of physics would allow a human being to naturally contort their face that way. I wish Batiuk would just go back to the old light hearted FW art style, at least that was pleasing to look at and partly masked how awful the strip was to read. He is absolutely horrible at drawing “realistic” characters consistently.
CaptainCab – I’ve been noticing that too, that whenever anyone posts one of the old Act I strips the art is far better than it is now. The characters are a bit stiff looking, but the level of detail and shading is better looking than the present day’s slap-it-out-in-an-hour stuff.
The FW life lesson for the day:
“Winning brings misery. Losing brings misery. Don’t try anything. Give up and eat pizza.”
At least there’s no Les
@Professor Fate: “And read comics”.
Monday: “I can’t believe we’re in the championship game!”
Tuesday: “I can’t believe we’re in the championship game!”
Wednesday: “I can’t believe we’re in the championship game!”
Thursday: “I can’t believe we’re in the championship game!”
Friday: “I can’t believe we’re in the championship game!”
Saturday: “I can’t believe we’re in the championship game!”
Sunday: “I can’t believe what happened off-screen in the championship game!”
That’s TB’s big payoff for a forty-one year long running gag. It just boggles the mind. Calling him a lazy hack is an insult to lazy hacks everywhere.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Typical Batiuk. Even when his characters have a chance to get what they’ve always wanted, they just wallow in misery because of it.
Premise-flogging and characters who only communicate via puns and wordplay…”How To Succeed In Syndicated Comic Strip Writing Without Even Bothering To Pretend To Be Trying”…starring Pulitzer (nominee) Boy as “The Hack”. And what the hell ever happened to that Jarod Posey kid?
A tag for unnecessary exposition would be redundant.
That second panel is terribly drawn. This whole thing’s a failure all around.
I think that “deja vu” phrase was used wrong.
That’s a new development for Tom Batiuk–taking a possibly humorous situation and trying your damnedest to make it ANTI-FUNNY.
It’s actually kind of amazing in a way.
@ComicTrek: You’re right, wouldn’t deja vu mean they’d already played the game, and Bull was dreaming about it again?
I bet this ends with them somehow winning dramatically, only to be disqualified right after. Flat out losing is exactly what they’re expecting, and winning would be way too positive.
If they won and didn’t have it taken away from them, it’d be like a Medium Large strip that had Charlie Brown deal with actually winning: “That’ll never happen again. I guess I should just stay home and drink more.”
@SpacemanSpiff85: Yeah. Reading through the comments at CK–yeah, READING, since I’ve been banned–I found out that the word he’s looking for is “precognition”.
This strip is past gone.
Welcome to Westview, where even your dreams and fantasirs are of bitter, bitter failure.
TB is getting either product placement money or a cease-and-desist letter from The Dr. Pepper-Snapple Group for today’s punchline.
Deja Blew
And tomorrow Batiuk will receive notice that he’s being sued by Dr. Pepper/Snapple Group for infringing on the trademarked name of their brand of bottled water.
CaptainCab – I’ve been noticing that too, that whenever anyone posts one of the old Act I strips the art is far better than it is now. The characters are a bit stiff looking, but the level of detail and shading is better looking than the present day’s slap-it-out-in-an-hour stuff.
The FW life lesson for the day:
“Winning brings misery. Losing brings misery. Don’t try anything. Give up and eat pizza.”
At least there’s no Les
@Professor Fate: “And read comics”.
Monday: “I can’t believe we’re in the championship game!”
Tuesday: “I can’t believe we’re in the championship game!”
Wednesday: “I can’t believe we’re in the championship game!”
Thursday: “I can’t believe we’re in the championship game!”
Friday: “I can’t believe we’re in the championship game!”
Saturday: “I can’t believe we’re in the championship game!”
Sunday: “I can’t believe what happened off-screen in the championship game!”
That’s TB’s big payoff for a forty-one year long running gag. It just boggles the mind. Calling him a lazy hack is an insult to lazy hacks everywhere.