Month: June 2017

Link to today’s strip.

Do any of you folks remember Silly Putty?  It was a strange, malleable plastic that could bounce, stretch in various ways, and had other interesting qualities.  And one of the things you could do was…well, I’ll let Wikipedia tell the tale:

“When newspaper ink was petroleum based, Silly Putty could be used to transfer newspaper images to other surfaces, potentially providing amusement by distorting the transferred image afterwards. Newer papers with soy-based inks are more resistant to this process.”

So, you could transfer the image of a single comic strip and, with a little patience, you could stretch that image out so that it was the size of an entire week’s worth of strips!  I can imagine how excited Tom Batiuk must have been to discover that Silly Putty is still being made, and that its adaptive process is only slightly dimmed with time.

I mean, last week with Dinkle, recording a CD had been decided, ways to raise money for this discussed, and frail elderly people were sent unsupervised into dangerous neighborhoods to hawk funguous and noisome confectionery offal.  If Dullard were in charge of that venture, we’d only now be deciding on what recording medium would require the least amount of work (yet would allow the most complaining).

I don’t want to delve back through Dullard’s scenes, but don’t they always play out this way?  It takes him weeks to open a letter, pack a van, invite a lost sister inside, or scowl about having to work.

Link to today’s strip.

(Credit to Atkinson, Byrne, Chaney, Ellner and Michalski)

This is like watching a movie where a character is confronting the antagonist, but you already know it’s a dream sequence so it really doesn’t make an impact.  We already know Blondie isn’t having an affair.  We’re just watching stuff get stretched out mercilessly.  On the plus side, the art is okay, the positioning of the characters is nicely done, and the faces look natural (aside from Psycho Woman)

And I can actually believe that the Dullards have a chest of drawers that appears to be about five feet tall and three inches deep.  It’s for all the pencils, you see!

Link to today’s strip.

Okay, I know the implication we’re supposed to take from this is that Blondie is cheating on Dullard.  But there are two things wrong with this scenario.

Firstly, Tom Batiuk seems to want to pull this “innocent happening taken as indecent” stunt again, after we’d just had the “Marianne Winters kills herself over kiss photo.”  We know it’s going to turn out to be a big nothingburger.   “Blondie has an affair” is not going to be on the menu.   It’s a tease and everyone knows it’s a tease.

Secondly, this is Funky Winkerbean.  Exciting (or even interesting) things are not allowed in this strip.

What I find most baffling about this episode is the architecture.  Yesterday, Dullard opened the door right behind Blondie.  Today, she goes wandering through the house, blithely unaware that Dullard is sneaking around behind her.  Just how stupid and unaware is she supposed to be?  Isn’t she supposed to be looking after a toddler, or has Skyler already wandered off to play in traffic?   (Who wants to bet Skyler won’t make an appearance this week?  Didn’t think so.)

Well, she’s a female character in Funky Winkerbean.  I guess that answers that.  Stupid and unaware are two of the major traits of the women in this strip.  Throw in “fat” and Blondie’s future in this strip is set in cement.

Link to today’s strip.

Greetings, folks, BChasm back in the stagnant pool for the next two weeks!  Strap yourselves in and get ready for excitement!  Ha ha, just kidding, I meant to say “excrement.”

So, we’re back with Dullard and Blondie, whose name I don’t remember and don’t really care to.   Dullard, looking weary as usual, opens the door and then rummages in his purse for his keys…hey, that’s doing it backwards!  Anyway, he overhears part of a conversation which gives his tiny brain a momentary pause.

Admittedly, he might have a reason to worry.  If you’re talking about a bad thing (“I have cancer”), you’d phrase it in the way that Blondie phrases it.  If you’re talking about a good thing (“I bought Dullard some of his favorite pencils for a surprise”) you’d probably add a phrase like “until the big day” or something.  So it sounds kind of bad, especially if you’re of the mind that everything that happens is terrible, which certainly describes our cast.

However, the fact that she utters the phrase at all is pretty baffling here.  How dense is Blondie, that she seems unaware that a door has just opened behind her?  Pretty dense, I am gathering.  This could have been fixed if panel one showed Dullard rummaging in his purse, then bumping the door which slowly opens, i.e., it was not really closed and could open silently.  But that’s not what we’re shown.  And, I should point out, I’m not a professional cartoonist.  Is there a professional cartoonist in the house?

Editors?  We don’t need no steenkin Editors!