Ha ha, old people are so stupid! But, like, the internet is so evil…
So when those two elements collide, get ready for wacky hi-jinks!
Today’s strip is the opening scene. I’m sure you’ll agree those hi-jinks aren’t very wacky. It’s too much work for them to be wacky. I mean, it takes them a long time to get out of bed, with all the creaking bones and complaints about gout. Hoping for wackiness is, like looking for substance in Funky Winkerbean, a fool’s errand.
Why can’t Batiuk ever use thought bubbles, instead of having his characters constantly talk out loud to themselves for no reason? He’s not drawing the strip anymore, so the extra effort it would take wouldn’t be his.
You know when a joke like this could’ve been funny? 1992, maybe. Probably about the time AOL started mailing out CD-ROMS.
spacemanspiff85: The sad thing about this gag is that here in 2017 printers are such an easy target for relevant jokes. “Change magenta cartridge? I just DID!” and so forth. Instead though, he goes for the punchline right out of 1999 thus making Holly look like a total moron. We’ve reached a point where “computers” aren’t “newfangled” anymore but sadly FW is as usual rooted firmly in the past. Which is even more amazing when you consider that technically it’s actually set in the future.
If old people do this, I’m guessing Bernie’s vendo friend does this all the time. I swear Westview is built along Love Canal.
“Oh no! It’s printing out all those pornos I looked at! Oh no! It’s printing out all those vendos I looked at!”
The older ladies at work are always doing this. They start printing a bunch of crap then take whatever prints out back to their desks, not noticing that the printer is out of paper and so their job didn’t complete.
I come along to print something out and after filling the machine with paper, and it seems like I’m always the one who has to fill the machine, three pages from their job comes out before it starts my job and…hey wait, this isn’t interesting or funny…better leave the humor to the professionals like Batty.
Over at the FW blog, Batiuk shares a few panels of a superhero concept he came up with in the early 60’s, while likening himself to Stan Lee. Check it out and “Marvel” at how those philistine New York comics publishers wouldn’t give him the time of day.
It’s not just an inane non-joke at the expense of old people in general. There’s some gender profiling going on here.
@paul
Yes, absolutely.
Over at the FW blog, Batiuk shares a few panels of a superhero concept he came up with in the early 60’s,
“At the same moment, The Radar spots his quarry, his slender power sword pulsing….”
That’s the most erotic thing Batiuk’s ever written.
You’re welcome.
I’m honestly surprised Batiuk didn’t use the phrases “World Wide Web” or “Information Superhighway” in this strip.
This actually did happen when I was in college in the mid-90s… Someone shut down our computer lab by deciding to print some 400-page government report on the economy or something… And your printers of that day were S-L-O-W