Montoni’s is busy in today’s strip! What? And Holly is flustered to the max and jealous of unhealthily self-conscious Cindy all the sudden*? Crazy!
Speaking of Crazy, his advice… isn’t ironic? I don’t know, actually, but I do know it’s been relevant to TB for decades. If only TB would take it one day.
Wait, Montoni’s is busy with regular FW cast members. Sheesh, this strip doesn’t even truly earn its “the rare Montoni’s customer” tag. This, THIS level of business has Holly frazzled and exhausted? She is as cut out for food service as Funky is for giving out marriage advice.
* Holly being self-conscious about her body hasn’t happened in a while, but to be fair, it actually isn’t new. It even goes back to when she was the other shoe.
Thanks for putting up with me and my blue tongue for the past two weeks. Thoughts and prayers for our next blogger…
Son of Stuck Funky 
That BatYarn, always with the stable of strong, secure female characters. Well, at least until Summer vanished, that is. This is more embarrassing than anything else, but I guess he assumed Holly’s sudden burst of insecurity and jealousy would be a cute little slice of “marital bliss”, FW style. But, of course, it’s mostly just out of character and stupid.
Such dated hairstyles. Cindy is wearing the same look that Holly had twenty years ago!
Batty just can’t draw women’s hair, much like how Karen Moy cannot draw a proper cat.
Always and ever with Batiuk, we have the inability to quite understand women. He thinks it’s typical that they act way too high school for their own good.
The correct answer, “You ARE fat and frumpy next to Cindy. And I’m a boiled peeled potato next to Masone. And a team of Harvard researchers has discovered that beautiful people are more likely to divorce. So by the time Cindy is as old and ugly looking as we are, she’ll probably be all alone too. Schadenfreude, honey. It’s the closest we’ll ever be to happiness.”
Oh Holly, you know Cindy has had tons of work done. But she made the mistake of wearing a short dress. Look at her knees, they always reflect real age.
Besides, you used to look just like Cindy, and look at you now. Therefore, take comfort in knowing that Cindy is one strip away from looking like you!
TB is wrapping up the Free Comic Day arc with a standard sitcom ending. The entire cast is gathered around the pizza table (we even get an appearance from Jessica, though I guess Skyler is still running amok at Ann and Fred’s). Of course he has to throw in one if his favorite sitcom tropes – the wife’s insecurity about her appearance compared to the ex and the husband’s bumbling effort to ease her anxiety. Nothing new here, just another awful FW arc in the bag.
That’s HOLLY in the flashback???? I was absolutely sure it was Cindy! Great artwork, BatHack.
“Gloria Daze.” BatWit needs to make everybody’s name a slapnuts hilarious pun. Oh, BAW HAW HAW HAW HAW!
Maybe Holly will have a few conversations with Cindy. When she finds out that Cindy regards herself as fat and old and undesirable despite looking thirty years younger than her former high school classmates, maybe Holly will decide that being a moderately overweight middle-aged woman is preferable to paralyzing insecurities that pretty much amount to a
mental illness.
It would have helped Holly to be this self-conscious about her weight when she was nagging Funky to go to the gym while looking like a damn parade float. She was noticeably more obese than usual, and if it had been done by any artist other than Batiuk, I’d have thought he was making a point with drawing her in such a fashion.