In today’s strip, John is an idiot.
That’s not really a snarky summary of today’s strip, that is quite literally the gag TB has written and illustrated.
So did DSH leave the room for this phone conversation? Does Komix Korner have more than one room? I understand that they would not have gotten the gist of the entire phone conversation from standing 5 feet away, but Lefty and Crazy didn’t overhear this “do it for free” exclamation?
Whatever. Both Crazy and Lefty are astonished by DSH’s idiocy, which is itself astonishing. The latter is married to him and the former has spent 8-10 hours a day for several years working with him, they should both be well aware of the depths of his idiocy.
Son of Stuck Funky 
It might have been pretty funny if he did a series of short arcs featuring John somehow bungling his attempts to cash in on the big Starbuck Jones craze, but instead BanTom (yawn) had to take the hacky slapstick approach so any humor derived from John’s pitiful sad-sackishness is purely accidental.
You know, I had almost forgotten that Lefty and DSH were married. The wedding band on Lefty’s facepalming hand jogged my memory. Ever since Rana disappeared and Wally started to lean on Rachel and Buddy, there has been very little interaction between DSH and Lefty as a married couple.
In fact, when she first showed up in this story arc I actually wondered what she was doing hanging around Komix Korner, which she rarely visited even when she appeared alongside DSH more regularly. If you just started reading this strip in the past couple of years you might well think that Lefty is Dinkle’s daughter (the only sensible reason she put up with him) and that DSH is very, VERY single.
I’d be shocked if something similar to this hadn’t happened to Batiuk himself, in real life.
BTW, in today’s Crankshaft, L’Auteur Glorieux takes another cheap shot at “bloggers.”
Why, oh, why can’t he draw the same character with the same nose in two panels in the same strip? Is there a secret pattern that I haven’t yet discerned? Aquiline, bulbous, pointy? Does the nasal-shape sequence constitute a code, which, upon decoding, divulges the date of the Flash/Les slash fan film premiere?
So the studio just flat out enslaved Gross John? I could get behind this.
Here, we get Lefty and Crazy moaning because oops, John is stupid again. On the other side, Batiuk being a damned hypocrite because we are dumber for reading his blog.
This strip is HIDEOUS. It moved past the “bad” line years ago. It’s like watching garbage rapidly ferment and decay over time. Never decomposing into dirt, but remaining the same, becoming a growing mass of ever-increasingly rotten gunk!!
@jim my each and it looks like he was writing his own blog when he came up with that.
I’d argue his comic strips have nothing to say.
How much fucking research do you need for a comic series that lasted only 100 issues?
What the fuck is a “part-time research assistant”, anyway?? John is supposed to be a grown-ass man — At least call yourself a “technical consultant” or something… “Part-time research assistant” sound like one of those phony jobs they invent at the studio so the vice-president’s teenage granddaughter can get credit working an “internship”…
Besides, why are they crying about him not getting paid? The part-time pay wouldn’t even begin to cover his hotel/pizza/Playboy Channel tab… Even if he was getting paid, he’d literally be making less than the janitor staff…
Fun fact: I did some volunteer work over the weekend, and met this dude who lost his right arm above the elbow in Iraq — And he did NOT have his sleeve pinned up.
1) Oh, come on… “Lust for Lisa” made it clear what kind of movies CME produces. Don’t act so surprised, people.
2) Notice Crazy Harry’s expression. Been there, done that.
OT/Crankshaft – I buy books online (for a library) as my actual day job, and there are lots of tiny bookshops operating out of someone’s attic or the basement of someone else’s shop. But the only way they can stay afloat is by selling on the internet, through Amazon Marketplace or EBay or such. Is there any evidence that Lilian is selling online? Just curious.
There’s a secret underground economy behind the missing children in FW. In DSH and Lefty’s case, they had to sell their child (or children, I think it was just one) in order to afford this money pit of a business.
I mean, come on, she’s a band teacher in the middle of Ohio trying to support the entire family, and this place obviously ain’t making any money now that Owen and Cody are no longer in the picture. This vignette further proves DSH has terrible negotiating skills and can’t define “margin”.
I retract my earlier statement about pay — I forgot this is the Westview Crony Mafia, so Masone will make sure Comic Book Store Guy gets $100,000 for a few weeks work, and sign an exclusive marketing contract with Komics Korner so it’s the only store in the country that sells official SJ movie merchandise…
As an aside, with so much “Let me put my boy on the payroll since the money is flowing…” going on, evidently in the Funkyverse Hollywood big-budget movies have less financial oversight than government contracts in New Jersey…
@Hannibal’s Lectern: I am disappointed that Batiuk never brought back that hawt blonde with the 44-FFF cup-sized rack who was originally going to play Lisa before the infamous “kill fee”…
This makes no sense (sigh, yeah, I know). Mason was so miffed at the leaked plot that he wanted the guy sued to dirt. But the studio, which Mason seems to rule with an iron hand, instead hires the guy.
Is Mason losing control of the company? That seems to be the real story here.
@beckoningchasm: No, no no… Mason *was* going to sue him until Pete Rattabastardo informed him that DSH John was a resident of Westview and therefore a member of the Westview Crony Mafia — Which has more perks and privileges than being a 33rd Level Mason plus being in the CIA plus being an astronaut plus being in the REAL mafia plus being a Cardinal in Rome plus being a successful college football coach in the deep south plus being a member of the Justice League…
Let John go off to Hollywood, Becky is still legally married to Wally anyway.