I don’t think I’ve seen too many more blatant examples of “sporto talk” as written by someone who never played sports and isn’t that familiar with them. “Shared our competition”? It really seems like he’s leading into “. . . but we also shared a forbidden love that we had to hide, from both the world, and ourselves. What’s that, Bull? You don’t remember that? Oh, that’s probably because of the CTE, right, pal?”.
And of course the only worthwhile thing about Bull is his Very Serious Condition. I’ve got to assume his induction has nothing do with his athletic accomplishments, but rather the terrible thing that happened to him. Because that’s the only reason Batiuk cares about him.
Advertisements
Is he nuts? This is a terribly tasteless joke, even by FW standards. It’s not a delightful benign condition that leads to bouts of adorable forgetfulness, it’s a horrible irreversible brain disorder. I’ve always felt that the original CTE arc was just cruelty for the sake of it and this one proves it.
You know, when you have to have a total unknown stranger character you invented just for this storyline literally give a speech to tell your audience the Serious Important Message you’re trying to get across, you’re probably not a very good writer.
A good comment, if you edit out ‘probably’.
Even the woman in panel two looks like “who is this mother bucker?”
I know of at least one person capable of saying “chronic traumatic encephalopathy” who is most definitely not OK… at least from the standpoint of being tolerable.
I have no words to describe how gratuitous and awful this is. He obviously has no idea what athletes who suffer from CTE experience.
OK, it’s clear Batiuk is chasing some award from a CTE organization. You have to admire his dedication to chasing book signing gigs and recognition. He is not terribly self aware.
Either that, or he’s trying to get football dropped from high schools and colleges so there will be more money for women’s sports
CTE can only be diagnosed post mortem
I’m willing to allow for the possibility that everyone in the strip is already dead and this is Batiuk’s depiction of their afterlives in Hell… I mean Northeast Ohio.
This strip is getting hard to stomach as he increasingly tries to deal with topical issues (with ham-fisted artlessness).
I’m now setting up a pool for people to wager on how soon it will be before we deal with undocumented/illegal (pick your preference) aliens.
Well, stuff like illegal aliens, Muslims, and tax increases give Batty a stiffy, so……..
I think he already took his ham-fisted swing at it with the ongoing Tedious Adventures of Wally and Adeela.
Are you kidding? He mentioned “H1B” once! You don’t get that kind of gritty realistic detail anywhere else.
I agree, especially since he has long ago lost his ability/desire to actually write conflict and strong emotion. So every topical issue is handled with the same bland sardonic fatalism. People are only ever mildly sad or vaguely uncomfortable.
This is just completely crass, even by BatYak’s ham-fisted standards. Read some of the stories of athletes afflicted with CTE, they’re not amusing little stories about forgetting where the car keys are or what you went to the supermarket for. He never would have stooped to trivializing Lisa’s stupid story like this but because Bull is the sporto-jock-former school bully his imminent decline is being played for chuckles, like it’s just another typically daffy Bull misadventure.
“I also like to say ‘I sit upon a splitted sheet – upon a splitted sheet I sit.’ And sometimes I enjoy saying ‘I’m a pleasant mother pheasant plucker – I pluck pleasant mother pheasants.’ I can say each of them five times fast if I want to! I’m a pleasantmotherpheasantplucker! I’m a pleasantmotherpheasantplucker! Hey, that was really good! Whaddaya know! I’m CURED! The CTE is gone! Well, no use hangin’ out with YOU losers anymore. Bull, smell ya later, mushbrain. By the way, WESTVIEW SUCKS!! BIG WALNUT TECH RULES!! BITE ME!!!”
[Cinderblock Head whips off his dark suit jacket to reveal his BWT varsity jacket, flips the “double bird” at the crowd, and storms off.]
Cured? He must have spent some time at the Magical Bedside Manor!
A year from now, we’ll get strips about blackface
On the upside, Caucayla may be allowed to talk.
It is wrong of me to find Crankshaft using bad coffee as a fuel additive more believable?