“Lewis and Clarking“? Does anyone use that expression, particularly when thinking to themselves? The answer is kind of a “yes”, though “Lewis and Clarking” as defined at Urban Dictionary might get you thrown out of the restaurant. Speaking of the restaurant, the caricatures on the walls behind our couple lead me to believe that this date is taking place at the Beverly Hills Palm, where Mason grabbed a bite with Les last summer.
28 thoughts on “The Expedition”
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Son of Stuck Funky 
“Lewis and Clarking me”…get the f*ck out of here with that shit, BamTon. The Great Storyteller climbs inside the head of one of his longest-running female characters, one with a lengthy and involved back story, and out comes a dizzy insecure desperate paranoid lunatic who swoons over everything Mason Jarr says. It’s completely deranged. I cannot believe that anyone could write something this foul and not immediately retch in in disgust after re-reading it. Assuming that he did re-read it, which is a pretty big assumption IMO. Please, someone at Batom Inc. World HQ, please hide the felt-tips after the next “Friends” marathon, I’m begging you.
I wonder who’s sitting across from Mason, since in the first panel it looks pretty clear that they’re sitting side by side.
What the hell does Lewis and Clarking me even mean? Exploring me with his eyes?
Also, this reminds me of the Bechdel test, which is about whether two female characters talk about something other than a man. Batiuk’s females can’t even talk to themselves about something other than a man, apparently.
I was Lewis-and-Clarking this gal for a couple of tick-tocks the other day, but I got Bo Peep.
When did I get such a receding hairline, but protruding nose and pronounced chin? It’s as if I was being created by a creator without artistic continuity! And I’m not only talking about the drawing!
Beckoning chasm, you are seeming somewhat Nordic
Waiting for a Sacajawea reference next.
@ SpacemanSpiff85: They are sitting next to each other in panel 1, but start to move away from each other in panel 2. Then, in panel 3, they not only put more distance between themselves, they actually switch places!
If Batiuk had spent more time among the Hollyweird types, he might have heard about the “180-degree rule,” which states that switching the perspective to the point where the characters seem to have traded places is disorienting to the audience.
Hey, we’ve got one for the Batiuktionary.
Lewis-and-Clarking: Used (presumably) to mean that someone is checking you out.
Actually means: Two people posing as explorers where one points in a direction while the other looks on.
Alternative use: Two people exploring each other’s bodies.
Cease and desist Tom, I beg you. Cease and desist.
Some other guy may be “Lewis and Clarking” her, but Cindy only has one goal in mind. To get Mason Jar in the “Sacagawea”.
From the misuse of a slang term he imperfectly understands to his insistence that inside every attractive face is an insecure, pathetic, needy mess, we get to see Batiuk in top form….as an incompetent who needs to concentrate on caring for his dying parents and leave the field to not burnt-out people.
So Batom® doesn’t have Cindy think out her obvious thoughts yesterday about what a miserable mess she is BUT SAYS IT OUT LOUD. Meanwhile today, he has her THINK OUT her uber-moronic “Lewis-and-Clarking” comment.
Batom®, this is why people hate your work. You’re a tone-deaf brittle sadistic sexist with delusions of grandeur.
@Nathan Orbal: Don’t forget his active antipathy to being told when he’s in the wrong. I still laugh about how his sock-puppet whining about ‘bullies’ got hit with the mighty ban-hammer. It’s not bullying when gaping logical flaws, paternalistic puffery about people being credits to their race and blatant misogyny and the failure to remember what his own characters are named are pointed out. That sort of thing means that telling him to put on a parka, hat, scarf and gloves when the wind chill was in the low minus twenties is also bullying.
@SpacemanSpiff85: This is because he’s a character in a Harry Turtledove book; the idea that a woman would have something to talk about that isn’t a man doesn’t even cross his mind.
No, he’s a pedantic schoolmarm from a bitter hollow.
This whole story arch is Sgt. Floyd.
(another L&C reference)
Based on Cindy’s thought balloon in panel 3, I think she’s Lewis and Clarking Mason under the table with her bare foot.
An obvious, but still effectively funny 4th panel would show a large mirror behind Cindy, but I guess TB feels that those antics are best left to the Wizard of Id.
Cindy should be happy that no one in this strip is Magellaning her, as TB’s history shows that impaling a major character with bamboo is not entirely out of the question.
Given the obsession with aging that pervades this strip, a more apt explorer’s name to drop would have been Ponce de Leon. As in: “That guy from Florida has been Poncing my de Leon all evening, but I can’t get Mason Jarr to open up.”
What really “Jarring” is how Mason Jarr’s appearance has changed over the course of 8 months. On the left is Mr. Jarr on 30 July 2014, and on the right is Mr. Jarr today (8 April 2015).
As I said before, if Batiuk can no longer be bothered to draw his characters distinctly and consistently with the “realistic style” he switch to back in 2003 then he should just go back to the classic style. At least the classic style was pleasant to look at, this garbage is just lazy and sloppy. Then again he can’t be bothered to remember the last names of key characters anymore so, oh well. Also, why does Mason have a receding hairline now? Like, is he obsessed with making all characters BUT Cindy morph into ugly, old people?
Anymore, it’s been a banner past month for new entries to the Batiuktionary.
I wish I could Hernandez Cortez every character in this strip..
Mason was going to play the younger phase 2 Les in the Lisa’s Story movie, and yet in real life he wants to date the phase 3 Cindy? Well it is true that Cindy is the one character who didn’t seem to age from the second time jump to the third. Funky and Holly got old and fat. Les and Crazy became grizzled and grey haired. Cindy didn’t change. What gives?
@Dreamer – I’d say Les has pretty much been spared the horrors of aging too. A new reader who was told that Les was in the same high school class as Funky, Bull and Harry would react with disbelief. He looks twenty years younger than Funky and at least forty younger than Harry.
Since Les is based on Tom Batiuk, I wonder if Cindy is based on some real-life acquaintance who Mr. Batiuk has lately decided needs to be punished.