Hey SoSFers, billytheskink here for my second tour of duty. Please bear with my pointless observations and references that usually only I find amusing and continue your excellent snark and discussion in the comments.
So much, and yet, ultimately, so little is going on in today’s strip.
Let us start with the so little, for those whose memories were fried by the back-to-batiuk Dick Tracy and Crankshaft crossovers, this is the auspicious beginning of the interview with Mason that Les arranged for Cindy. Today they are introduced… and that’s it. Mason is remarkable cheerful bout meeting Cindy, considering that this interview basically is happening because of the silent threat that Cindy might reveal Mason’s presence in Westview on the Cleveland evening (Clevening?) news. Funky’s comment is perhaps supposed to give us the idea that Mason’s cheer has to do with Cindy’s looks, but considering that she does not move an inch between the panels I think it is just as likely that TB accidentally put a space between “in” and “action”.
On to the so much…
– This is probably the first time in 30 years that a man kissing a woman’s hand wearing a Members Only jacket has been called “charming”.
– I just now noticed that the Montoni’s man on Funky’s apron is really just a dismembered head and hands.
– Cindy is pulling off the difficult one-handed awkward turtle in panel 2.
– She is also remarkably calm having her hand so close to Mason’s face. Look at thing, you could cut a roast on it.
– The green pitcher is always a welcome sight amidst the general schmuckery that occurs at Montoni’s.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Boy, someone sure has a crush on this Mason Jarr guy, huh? No, not Cindy (who, as a network anchor, has undoubtedly met far bigger personalities than Mason Jarr), I mean BanTom. The incessant smirking and eyebrow-cocking, the way the local women uncontrollably swoon over him, the way he takes his milk and cookies while sitting on the floor reading comic books…it’s as if he just stepped out of some kind of wonderful comic book coma dream. Which he did.
I’m still amazed that Batiuk thinks things like “Charmed…You’re charmING!” are funny. Using two different tenses of a word does not equal wit.
At least it’s Cindy going ga-ga over a F-list movie actor and not the Moore kids.
This is just pitiful.
The hell is this taking place at Montoni’s? Is this literally the only public place in Westview?
Also, for an apparently successful restaurant owner, (whose wife recently was able to heedlessly drop over $50k on comic books) Funky sure spends a lot of time standing around doing nothing.
I have to admit, I’m a fan of hand-kissing. It’s elegant in an adorably old-fashioned way. However, if Mason Jarr the Actor here started sucking on my knuckles with his smirking gash of a mouth, “charming” is not the word that would come to mind.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to have the interview at the studio? The studio that Cindy works at? Because Cindy is a reporter?
Who am I kidding, of course it’s at Montoni’s.
Mason Jarr, the actor, is wearing a jacket that doesn’t fit. Rico Suave.
Mason Jarr, the world’s least interesting man. No wonder he’s such a hit in Westview.
Why does Batboy continually forget that Cyndi is in her 50’s, having been a classmate of these morons, and Funky’s first wife? She again appears to be about 25, in which case she potentially could be of interest to 30-ish Tin Cann (Mason Jarr’s real name).
But in reality, or a quarter inch removed from same, she’s old enough to be his mom, so once again Batsuck is creeping us out. Eww.
Why the surprise about The Interview being held at Montoni’s? This had become Cyndi’s home away from home since she got demoted all the way down to (yecch) Cleveland. It’s where she comes first when poking around for a story of interest to Cleveland news watchers. And First Wife Cyndi is such gosh darn good friends with Second Wife Holly. It’s like one big happy messed up family, by golly.
I’ll bet every town in Ohio has a pizza joint as the hub of municipal activity. Look at any sports event televised from Ohio, and you’ll see thousands of fat slobs who no doubt spend the majority of their lives stuffing their faces at a pizza joint. Now THAT’S charmING.
What irritates me is that Funky persists in seeing Cindy as a manipulator because she put her career ahead of his egotistical fantasies of being Mister Big Shot who decides everything for everyone. Rather than be chained to a one-stoplight town and a scruffy nerf-header who slings terrible Ohio pizza, she drove said idiot to drink by having free will.
This sort of John Patterson-like entitlement and stupidity is the secret ingredient in the pizza that is the Batiukverse.
Jeez, Funky, that’s a pretty cold way to talk about your daughter, especially to her face.
Hmm. Perhaps there’s more than meets the eye. Perhaps she’s trying to once again escape from Clevelantis by using him as a stepping stone.
So Funky, who was married to Cindy for what, 5+ years, has forgotten what it was like to see her in a “romantic” situation. So many FW-appropriate things can be inferred from that (the drinking, dementia, probably cancer). So which one will it be?
I get the subtle feeling that the author has vast problems with women.
So, yet again Less More skips out on his teaching job, but continues to collect his taxpayer-funded paycheck from the school district? This time to chauffeur Mason Jarr, the Hollywood Movie Actor?
@Professor Fate: All the evidence we might need for BanTom’s—shall we say peculiar?—attitude towards women is contained all nutshell-like in a throwaway line attributed to Le Chat Bleu during the arc about delicate author Les’s monumental struggle to deliver the “Lust for Lisa” teleplay. Quoth Le Chat: “Your mother really did a number on you.”
This was never explained nor ever mentioned again.
The play that Casablanca was based on was originally called Everything Happens in Montoni’s.
@Professor Fate, TB doesn’t do subtle. He does deems to drop women into several categories, ornament, doormat, prop, dim bulb, castrater, … anything but a fully developed human.
The Cindy story arc was another one he inexplicably dropped and ignored for no reason. Remember when the strip was hinting that Cindy might move in with the Winkerbeans for a while? Died on the vine. There was no real reason for that “you’re too old and haggard for TV news” arc he did with her, it was just sheer comeuppance. No follow-up, no purpose, just revenge.
@Epicus Doomus: All for daring to challenge the alleged masculinity of the pompous bucket of lard title character. The clear reason for Batiuk’s default misogyny seems to be that his mother wanted him to get a REAL job instead of doodling nonsense about football teams that never win. He’s thus a sixty-something version of one of the massive-diameter cockholes behind Gamergate.
@ Paul Jones: And yet this is the same “pompous bucket of lard title character” that L’Auteur Glorieux despises so much that he treats him with less respect than an actual pompous bucket of lard. Go figure.