Month: April 2015

Who did a number on you?

Today’s strip wasn’t available for preview, so I got to thinking about what I really like about Les Moore. I mean, given yesterday’s strip, would I have gone to his high school party? Actually, probably I would have. We’d have tuned the radio to whatever Ohio station had Dr. Demento on, then I would have left by 9. I didn’t drink in high school, because I was a foolish young boy.

Oh yeah, my topic sentence. Nothing. That’s what I like about Les Moore. I am flummoxed as to why TB chose Les as his author avatar. By all accounts, TB is kind and charming in person. What does he see in Les Moore? What is the origin of his self-loathing? His mother who “really did a number on” him?

Your mother really did a number on you, says Le Chat Bleu to Les

The 44,000 names of Pete

Today’s strip was unavailable for preview, so I followed up on my speculation that BanTom’s secret purpose was to list the 9 billion names of Pete Rebimbas, thereby bringing about the eschaton.

I pulled all the Pete-like names out of my list of first names, and combined them with all the last names beginning in R from my list of last names. The results were not as grandiose as for Clarke’s Tibetan lamasery. Pete has about 44 thousand names, 43,638 to be exact.

I’ve posted the names on the internet, but nothing eschatological has happened yet. I was hoping for Cthulhu to descend upon us and reap all the residents of Westview, but again I was disappointed.

Montoni’s pizza is people! It’s people!

In today’s strip, a slouching, lumpy Les McHarris carries a Montoni’s Pizza box home for his long-suffering wife. The box is completely white, but for “Montoni’s” and “Pizza” inscribed only on the edges. It is otherwise unadorned.

In panel 1, a hungry, hungry Cayla Wrich greets her mate with bitter sarcasm. “Our ‘meals on wheels,’” she begins with ominous scare quotes, “took a while…” She pauses menacingly, like a sharp-pincered scorpion. Venom drips from her tail. “I expected you sooner.”

“I tried calling and texting you to see what was holding you up,” she does not add, because that would interfere with the narrative, which involves characters behaving unlike any actual human.

“I got hung,” panel 2 has Les beginning succinctly, “up while I was in the process of agreeing to take over the chairmanship of my high school class reunion celebration event,” he continues, goes on, and says at length.

The final panel would have been better had Cayla stabbed Les with her foot-long stinger, cutting him apart with her claws, and devouring him. Instead, we get the punchline.

“Surely, you’re joking, Mr. Munyon.”

“Do you see me laughing?”

Do you see the readers laughing?

You’re probably a craven liar like everyone else in Hollywood, Ms. Soyring

“My pal Pete Ratti,” declaims Derwood Faroni in today’s strip, “would be perfect for putting words into the mouth of Mason Jarr.

“Fortunately, Les, my sort-of stepfather, whose wife Lisa died of cancer, has warned me about you Hollywood types, so I expect you to betray me,” he continues.

Also: The artiste works in a few bricks in panel 1, and uses ¾ perspective in panel 2 to go wild with a brick sidewalk.

“Oh, yeah, Lisa was my birth mother.”

Your head is much smaller in person, Ms. Schiferl

“I’m Darin Fairgood,” exclaims Durrhey Faroni, as he madly runs down a bemused Cindy Sitts in today’s strip. And, boy, has he got a recommendation for her! His old pal, Pete Persall, the recently canned former author of the Mr. Sponge comics.

Cindy, meanwhile, has no idea what Durrhey is going on about, even though she’s dating the lead in the Starbuck Jones movie, and has literally just left a conversation with Les about needing a script doctor for that comic-book-based project.

In BanTom’s ongoing War on Human Proportions, today the heads are tiny, when sometimes they’re as big as torsos. And so it goes.

And yes, I’m using a computer to generate random last names for all the characters. It’s the only way I can keep up with Tom Batiuk.