Greetings fellow snarkers, BChasm back for another stint in the chair. Congratulations to HeyItsDave for giving us an exemplary two weeks on his first time out. Well done indeed!
As for today’s offering, there’s one thing worth noting:
Wedgeman’s back! There he is, near the center of panel one, burnt orange t-shirt, arms angrily crossed as if he’s been assigned to read Funky Winkerbean. What tales he could tell us! Like maybe, what the heck is Alex doing with her hand? Stifling a yawn? I’m with ya there, Alex. Note that Glasses seems to’ve lost a lot of weight, and behind him is some kind of creature I think I saw in a scary YouTube video. And right under the dialog there’s a girl who is fading out of existence! Wow, someone could use that if there was a space movie filming nearby!
Other than that, ho-hum. When I was in high school, any excursions off the school grounds did not require a face-to-face meeting with the parents. Usually, a permission slip had all the information my parents needed (itinerary, what to bring, etc), so I brought it to them, they read and signed it, and I turned it in. Are there now actual after-hours meetings for this sort of thing? If so, my next question is “Why?”
I’m going to pass over the comic book stuff and point out the awful overly-spun dialog we’ve got today. Always a problem when you draw your word balloons a year before you know what to fill them with. Wouldn’t panel one read better like this:
On the other hand, maybe we should just go with our inner Batiuk:
Son of Stuck Funky 
I never went on a senior trip to Washington, so I don’t know if having parents along is accurate. But I don’t remember them going on other senior trips in this strip.
And I think Les is trying to be funny, and failing. Not to mention Batman is passe. It’s Captain America now.
Clunky repetitive dialog, stupid premise, terrible punch line and Dick Facey on top of it all, as punchable as ever. Another school bus trip, more Wedgeman gags, probably a punch line about how “nothing gets done in Washington either”…ugh, it’s gonna be a real slog this week.
Sending the notice out the day of the meeting is such a dumbass move. Of course Les would do that.
I’m not even sure what the joke is. Does Les think they’re going overboard by using multiple channels to inform parents of what is probably an important meeting (considering it concerns their kids going out of state for several days)? Does he not trust the parents to show up unless there’s a comic-strip related factor? Has he finally realized that no matter what he says, he’ll always come off as the biggest asshole possible?
We can only hope the parents see the bat signal and bring their bats to the meeting. Swing away!
That last one, TheDiva.
The Bat-iuk Signal: a very, very dim light in the shape of Lisa’s big grinning moon head. And only one man can see it, but only in autumn.
There’s something I found in Batiuk’s blog that I think is really pretty interesting. He’s explaining that weird “Thanks, Andy” box from the strip a while back when Mason’s jet was buzzing over Les’s house. (Apparently it flew over Crankshaft’s house in Centerville seconds later, but from what I remember nobody could tell the difference between the two).
He refers to Les’s house as “Les and Lisa’s house”. Even though in the strip, Lisa’s been dead for 15-20 years. And Les has actually remarried and shares that house with Cayla. But it’s still “Les and Lisa’s house.” Cayla’s irrelevant. Not that that’s any kind of revelation to anyone who’s read this strip. Really, the best description of her function, more even than “Les’s wife” would be “Lisa facilitator”.
Oh, and in the previous entry Batiuk hopes the Flash and his female friend are “at least friends with benefits”.
spacemanspiff85: IMO he puts way more into the blog than into the strip these days. He actually seems to like the blog, that being the key difference. Still, it’s good to see he’s found an outlet to fill the forty-nine weeks between banging out another year’s worth of “stories”.
Batom and his meaningless details. He’ll cleverly find a way to slip his very clever “shout-out” to “Andy” in there yet that tiny self-gratifying little nugget is surrounded by weeks worth of total crap featuring a bunch of morons babbling about stuff the author of the comic strip never even bothered to draw or explain in any real detail. He can draw tens of thousands of perfect bricks then bleat out the most inane dialog and jokes imaginable. The whole strip, every single last little detail, it’s all topsy-turvy.
On this side, we have boring twaddle about the looming senior’s trip to Washington. On the other, Jeff is a punk-ass bitch wishing that doctors had come along and narcotized his mother into stupefaction long ago.
@Epicus Doomus: “He can draw tens of thousands of perfect bricks”
Maybe once upon a time, when he still cared about the bricks.
There is no joy in Westville, not even among the fired clay rectangles.
So what movie set/TV show will they “accidentally” interfere with this time? Will Batiuk merely have the bus get lost and become part of the Memorial Day parade, or will he go for broke and have the bus become part of the Presidential motorcade??
Is there a super hero based in Washington? My guess is the “seniors” find a way to get Montoni’s delivered to their hotel.
Hey, speaking of that douchebag Les aka Dick Facey, remember when his huge achievement was climbing Mr. Kilimanjaro? Check out this article currently on Cracked – read #9 in the list and try not to think of that smug asshole Les.
Alex isn’t stifling a yawn. I used to use that exact same bored look and hand position to subtly flip off my teachers in high school.
Also, look at the body language of the other two. Wedgeman is asleep, and I think Owen is trying desperately to adjust a boredom boner – something I’m sure everyone who was once a 17-year-old boy who had to sit through a class he hated knows and remembers with dread.
Wow, what backward dialog. I’m thought Les was referring to the trip chaperones, not the actual parents of all the students.
Ah boredom boners, I remember those from senior lit. Kathy sat across from me, the tight jordache, the mini skirts, sigh….that was how I got through the Canterbury Tales. And no, my teacher didn’t dress up and walk around with a smirk on her face.
@dave
The Cracked article was so true. You know Batty brags of that all the time when he gets together with his Ksu buddies. Four dead in Ohio! How many more?
I gotta go to one of his book signing events and ask him why he is so obsessed with cancer and old people.