Month: July 2018

Two is Agony so Three’s a Clown.

Link to Today’s Comic.

Cayla seems to think that during their trip to Sandy Eggo they will actually get to ‘see the sights.’ Eat sushi in Little Tokyo, dance to mariachi music in Old Town, maybe go to the zoo to make interracial jokes about the pandas. (All things I made time to do during my Botcon San Diego trip.)

Obviously Les is planning the vacation will take place entirely within the confines of the San Diego Convention Center. Cayla will be lucky to drag him across Harbor Drive for a single sitdown meal that isn’t convention concessions food.

I’m guessing that she’ll spend most of the convention pressed against the glass in the Sails Pavilion, staring out the window wistfully at the Gaslamp Quarter; surrounded by things she neither understands nor cares for.

No wonder Les wants to bring Crazy Harry along. He wants a solid tie breaking vote in favor of skipping supper again to wait in the endless Hall H line for another seven hours.

Eisnerian Gothic

Link to Today’s Comic.

I would make some kind of comment on Caucayla not knowing the location of the awards because Wimmin Amirite? But apparently Les previously didn’t even know the award existed.

I’ve been to San Diego for a Botcon once in the summer. It was really nice coastal climate, and not any hotter or muggier than Midwestern summer can get. And since when has CauCayla been heat intolerant?

The second panel is pretty great though, with Darin fleeing from a conversation still taking place while Les and Cayla do their best impersonations of Queen Elizabeth, with a wave goodbye more wooden than Cigar Store Indians. Cayla has a halo around her head…perhaps a first miracle on her own path to sainthood?

This art is really starting to annoy me though. Everyone’s face has become interchangeable. You remember when Cayla had a broad nose and Darin had a beak? The artist sure doesn’t. He has two noses to use, C-shaped or L shaped, and he barely remembers which character gets which. Batiuk can’t be bothered to push Burchett for consistency of character design in a strip worshiping comics as an art form next to opera in importance.

Compare with yesterday’s Crankshaft with art by Davis. Look at that detail! He carefully drew the wedding picture on the wall as a totem of the romantic creature in Ralph that the drive-in waitress has reawakened in him.

All Les and Cayla get on their wall is the avant garde, “Grey Rectangle Against Grey Background.”

Barf

Link to Today’s Comic.

Today’s strip wasn’t available for preview, so I stayed up till 11:30 central time pressing refresh waiting for this to drop.

And when it did drop…oh how it dropped…It dropped like a wet turd on a soggy carpet. Disgusting, toxic, waste contaminating an already blighted background.

The only joy I’m getting from this is the anticipation of all your comments on it. Attack! Like the Furies of old! Savaging those who defile honor, oath, and the natural bonds of kinship!

Toy Suprise

Link to Today’s Comic.

Comic Book Harriet back again for another whirlwind adventure through the funny page’s most wry adventure. Thanks to Billy The Skink for easing us through another dull comic arc, this time compounded with sickening romance, subtle sexism, and the good old Westview Nepotism Mafia. (Kudos to whichever StuckFunkian coined that phrase.)

Now I get to enjoy some Les and Darin action, which always has a creepy vibe to it. Like at any second I could start hearing some ominous yet sensual music playing in the background.

One thing I’ve noted over the last couple weeks. Our ‘skilled’ artist has sunk to new levels of phoning it in by drawing eyes as nothing more than tiny dots with eyebrows in several panels, with none of the hint of upper eyelid seen in the usual ‘house style.’ I expect the strip is going to gradually morph into Sally Forth.

Clotting with faint praise

180708Rip Tide Scuba Cop has never looked better than he has in today’s strip, which would be high praise for Mindy’s coloring skills if this wasn’t issue #2 of the title.

That’s more than can be said of Pete’s writing… Why Rip Tide did not assume that antibodies would be apt to attack him, as they do to germs and other foreign substances in the bloodstream seems like a rather foolish call on his part. It also seems like this will be an expensive cover to print, requiring a special cut for the thought bubble that hangs off of the side. Chester may have to sell some more of his collection.

And with that, I leave this gilded site and the mucky comic strip that it covers in the extra-capable hands of comicbookharriet. Best of luck, hope you don’t get any Les strips.