Is this today’s strip or the October 26 strip?! No, it is today’s… and it leaves us in the exact same place we were in October. THE. EXACT. SAME. PLACE.
Masone promises a “shopping agreement”, explains that he has to sell Lisa’s Story to some powers-that-be, assures him of his good intentions and that he is making the right decision by letting Masone pursue this stupid movie thing, Les prepares to wait for the shopping agreement in a snit… scene. It’s the exact same thing we got in October with two exceptions:
One, this week of Masone-wants-to-make-a-Lisa’s-Story-movie strips was preceded by a week of Les and Cayla arguing about whether or not they should fly to California to discuss with Masone the fact that he wants to make a Lisa’s Story movie. We wasted this week on repeating the October scenario PLUS the week of Les and Cayla debating whether to take the stupid trip… the trip that could have been resolved with a 15-minute telephone call!!!
Two, this week ends with the unfortunate promise of future strips in which Les takes Masone around New York for some unbearable Lisa reminiscence, undoubtedly griping all the way.
Misery. Sheer misery.
Son of Stuck Funky 
If that’s the full moon, then it’s setting over the Pacific Ocean, which puts this scene just before dawn and means this psychotic episode has dragged out all night–which serves them right, each and everyone.
Or maybe the moon has had enough of this craziness and is accelerating away from the earth to escape the blame. “Bye-bye, world, you can’t pin this lunacy on me!”
On top of all that, Les’ hesitancy over sharing his stupid story makes no sense, as he already has shared it, over and over and over again. He should be hesitant because of his “Lust For Lisa” experience, not because he’s uneasy about sharing it in the first place. Les is right back where he was when he was trying to get it published in the first place, it’s as if the last thirteen years never even happened. Which would be impossible anywhere but in the Funkyverse.
Maybe Les is afraid that another writer will do a better job of telling Lisa’s story than he did, and everyone will say it’s one of those movies that’s better than the book. Either that or he murdered Lisa, and another writer will spot the clumsy inconsistencies in his story.
Pretty sure this is Batiuk stretching his “greatest hit” so that it covers his 50th. “It started as a gag-a-day high school strip, but Tom Batiuk wanted to make a deeper impression…”
The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs left a pretty deep impression too…
I don’t even know how to parse the words “I won’t intrude… It’ll just be between us.” but I do know that Les and Masone seeing the Lisa sights together in New York could be a contender for the worst thing this strip has ever produced when it happens.
Well, the stars have gone out. Maybe that’s not the moon at all, but an exoplanet on a collision course with the Earth.
What I’m saying is I’m hoping that Les, Mason, Cindy, and Cayla, are about to reenact the end of Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia.
Well, I for one am looking forward to the two-week arc in May, wherein Mason and Les are both guests at the Komix Korner during Free Comic Book Day. Mason tells Les he’s interested in turning Dead St. Lisa’s story into a feature film, Les expresses some doubts, and Mason promises to send him a “shopping agreement” soon.
Right now, The Delicate Genius is probably kicking himself because he actually killed Bull off. That’s because he can’t do a living with CTE but not really arc any longer.
As someone who was born and grew up in the Los Angeles area, I have to admit this scene is true to life: if you tilt America on its side, everything loose WILL slide there. Batiuk picked a fine time to get something right!
I thought Lisa lived and died in Westview, not NYC. Ok, they went to Central Park that one time.
I love this about the whole scenario here: As if a studio is going to on location to shoot this film when there are a ton of locations in places like Alhambra, San Gabriel, Pasadena, etc. where this epic and easily be filmed, and not involve the cost of loading equipment and grew to the middle-of-nowhere Ohio.
So you want to spend millions making a film about an annoying woman who died of breast cancer due to a misdiagnosis? You think this is a hit story?
Get the F*ck out of my office Mason!
Reminds me of Carl Switzer. In adulthood he’d go to audition and got a lot of “Sing off key, Alfalfa!”
Sorry for the terrible writing! It hardly makes any sense!
Or shoot the whole thing in Vancouver, where the studios can get fantastic tax breaks.
There have been several films shot here in Cleveland. Apparently the tax breaks are quite good in addition to the overall low cost of food, housing, etc.
So. . . what is Less’ objection to mega starlet Marianne Winters? Fungy readers want to know!
That’s right Less & JarreHead, thirty million people will want to see your movie, which will gross over $200,000,000. Fantasy is too weak of a word for what’s going on here.
Yep, this whole things reeks of Batiuk living out his fantasy life.
Hey-Zeus Key-riste! Can’t Todd look at an almanac in grandpa google to find that today’s moon is last quarter, or waning, like the quality of the storytelling?
Batty had his chance in Hollywood with the proposed Crankshaft movie. It probably would have done decently well back in 1979.
Admittedly, I am not a scholar of Lisa’s story, so I fail to remember exactly WTF happened in New York that makes it so crucial to the story that Less and Mason need to make a personal trip to relive it in person. Also, does Less really need to hand deliver the shopping agreement to Apple Annie? They do that stuff with PDFs and emails these days.
As best as I can recall, they sat on a bench in Central Park with LEAVES falling.
Batty: “I haven’t been nearly obnoxious enough lately. Hmmm… what to do… Oh, I know! I’ll combine a sideways strip with mountains of text with Dead Lisa worship with extreme Wish Fulfillment! This will stick it to all the snarkers, internuts, and Twitter Tots! (smirk)”
Maybe Les didn’t sign the agreement the first time, and this whole trip is a second attempt to try and convince him to sign it so the project can proceed. It would be exactly like Les to do that, and even more like Batiuk to not tell the audience what happened.