Month: March 2015

No Fidelity

Link To Today’s Strip

Har har har, I get it. Add “music hipsters” to the list of modern-day whackadoodles. Or maybe it’s a fond homage to those annoying plastic converter things you used to need to play 45 RPM records. Who knows and frankly, who cares? All things considered, this isn’t the worst FW gag I’ve ever seen but DAMN is that gigantic single panel jarring, it’s just huge.

Note the park bench, as it isn’t just any old park bench…it’s a very special park bench. I like how the seasons change in Westview, just instantaneously all at once. That would be so cool in real life, you know?

One final beady-eyed nitpicky point: the floating music notes should be coming from the headphones, shouldn’t they?

Someone Told Me Mason Jarr’s Out There

Link To Today’s Strip

So Cindy’s goin’ to California, with love in her eyes and (presumably) a f*ck-ton of peroxide in her hair. “Safe travels”…I don’t know about you but that’s sounds like Westviewian for “uh-oh”. But seriously though, you know what’s particularly irksome about this one? It’s the way Cindy’s dialog and actions seem to indicate that they’ve just had a fruitful and useful conversation when in fact it was anything but. Funky laughed at her, then he mocked the internet, then he sat there, then he wished her well. Either Cindy is REALLY mentally troubled or someone’s a REALLY terrible storyteller.

Coming next spring: After being booted off Buddyblog upon becoming impossible to look at, Cindy moves into radio, only to be told that her voice is simply too raspy and unappealing for FM broadcasts. After a brief stint on the AM dial (doing weather and traffic on the Radio Ron morning show), she takes a podcast gig only to be relentlessly mocked by the locals for getting herself involved with that whole The Internet scam. Then she goes home and quietly waits to die.

BuddySlog

Link To Today’s Strip

Cue the sad trombone sound because it’s still raining and Cindy’s still getting fired for being so old and washed-up. Yep, again! It’s why she’s considering the Buddyblog offer, in fact. Well, that and the “low res”, of course. It’s a little disconcerting how Tom Ban appears to be playing this woman’s total mental and emotional destruction for laughs but then again she did kind of have it coming after being so beautiful and successful for all those years. Although it is encouraging to see that she’s stayed right on top of news media transformations, though. Because who the hell saw that coming, right?

The “bo peep” thing is one of those bizarre FW punchlines that’s only funny because it’s so ludicrously bad. I mean I know he’s aiming for a sort of “Jerry & Elaine”-style banter here but nope, big swing and a miss. “X-man”, “bo peep”, if Cindy appeared more often I think she’d skyrocket up the “most annoying characters” list, you know?

Duh, Actually

Link To Today’s Thing

Hey gang, Epicus here to steer the S.S. SoSF through the rest of this…thing. Special thanks as always to the entire SoSF crew!

I really love it when one of Tom Ban’s carefully crafted little stories comes together all at once like this. You see, it’s not just all about how dumb, useless and stupid The Internet is, oh my heavens no. It’s also about Cindy and how her rapidly-escalating ugliness has reached a point where she’s just too haggard and hideous to be on TV anymore…even in Cleveland. Thus she has a hidden motive for seriously ACTUALLY considering “Buddyblog’s” offer, as in her opinion the internet’s “low res” video is just the thing to disguise her grotesque appearance enough to extend her pathetic dying career for a few more months, at which point she’d just be too old and grossly-deformed to do much of anything at all anyhow. Sounds like a plan!!!

Strong female characters bursting with “can-do” self-esteem aside, why do I get the impression that the Batom Inc. studio plays host to an old Packard Bell box (with zip drive!) running Windows 98? These hilarious internet gags would have played a lot better in 1999, but here in 2015 they just make him look silly. And boy, is he chew-toying the ever-living hell out of Cindy or what? Ever since she was demoted for being so heinous and old, every appearance has centered around how heinous and old she is now. It’s relentless.

And check out the Funk-Man in panel two. You can at least pretend to care, Funky.

Face For Radio

Here we have it, all in today’s strip , exactly why Cindy dumped Funky’s sorry butt like last week’s tuna cassarole. What a non-supportive jackass! One more panel and we’d have Funky going: “No, really Cindy, you dames dress pretty and all and smell nice but you don’t know anything about computers!”

Or maybe he thinks she’s way too old for the job? Either way it’s a front-handed slap of an insult. Cindy sulks a bit, but if she wants a free slice of pizza and a 20 ounce fountain Diet Coke I guess she’s going to stand there and take it.