If today’s strip is any indication, TB really wants to get on Jeff Knurek’s Christmas card list. Can’t blame him for that, Knurek’s work on Jumble is excellent and his Christmas cards are surely top-notch.
Cayla is now the latest in a long line of women in the Batiukverse who aren’t initially familiar with the comic interests of their significant others, or comics at all. That will change, though, just as it did with Lisa, Holly, Jess, Mindy, Cindy, even Donna… well, everybody but Lefty, really. It’s weird that DSH never indoctrinated Lefty being that he has owned a comic book store since long before they even met. That’s probably why she is always hanging around with Dinkle, in a desperate bid to avoid comics. Anyways, Cayla doesn’t read Three O’Clock High and she’ll be lucky to not be burned at the stake.
Son of Stuck Funky 
They’re going to spend this entire week in the main office talking to Cayla aren’t they?
This self-praise stuff is really concerning. I mean, it seems way more creepy than simple egoism or narcissism.
Just wait until Batton shows us his stigmata.
I wouldn’t even call this ‘self-praise’. No one but Les has heard of 4:20 High. It’s almost like Batiuk is feeding his desire for humiliation.
It’s a tumor.
Stigmata, my ass. After that shameful Eisner arc, I’m anticipating a full-blown fake Pulitzer prize nom.
So Les has been married to Cayla for what, ten years now? And he’s extremely passionate about the comics page, and had no idea Cayla didn’t read it at all? And this is supposed to be a healthy relationship?
More like a “The Thing That Wouldn’t Die” relationship. What kept Cayla from saying something blandly neutral, then changing the subject? “Oh, hey, of course! Good to meet you! By the way, Les, one of your kids snuck a machine gun into your classroom. He said that he heard it would be a laugh riot.”
If Batiuk ever read the comics page, would he die of embarrassment when he saw his competition? Among mediocrities like Judge Parker, Rex Morgan and Mary Worth, he stands out only by being worse than any of them.
HOW DARE YOU CALL MARY WORTH A MEDIOCRITIY?!? MARY WORTH IS LIFE AND LOVE.
Plus Mary is the only senior to survive the Spanish Flu and Covid 19 !
Been awhile since I messed with it, but “Mary Worth” is in that “So bad it’s actually not that bad” category along with Mark Trail and Newspaper Spider-Man… But yeah, Judge Parker, Rex Morgan, Luann v2.0, Gil Thorp, and the goddamned Phantom can all vanish for all I care…
FWIW, there are some hard-working cartoonists singlehandedly saving the comics page every day (Non Sequitur, Pearls Before Swine, and some new upstarts some years back i.e., The Meaning of Lila who really had potential but just couldn’t find a foothold) but they’re becoming fewer and fewer.
The deck is stacked against new comic strips. The newspaper industry, and its ancient readership, are violently allergic to anything new, unfamiliar, or provocative. So any young creator who tries to carve their own niche is going to draw negative feedback, while legacy garbage like Funky Winkerbean lives forever because it always has.
Unless a new strip’s entire shtick is telling Baby Boomers how great they are. There’s always room for another Pluggers or Dustin on the comics page.
Gotta disagree with you there. Between drunk Wilbur and dip$hit Dawn, Mary Worth has been great this year.
Seeing a drunken Wilbur with spicy noodles all over his shirt was some of the best artwork on the comics page.
Their snark page MaryWorthandMe is great—especially the annual Worthy awards.
The thing that makes Mary Worth these days is the art. While Uncle Joe was great in his own way, Brigman seems to be in on the joke. The art is both beautiful and hilarious. Full of funny background details and over the top melodrama.
Totally agree…good stuff.
“You don’t know his comic strip? It’s on the comic pages, where people can read its comical tendencies, every day, in strip form, in the newspaper that prints the news!” Les, I think your second wife, who is not Dead St. Lisa, can suss out the basics of what a comic strip is without you going through a history of “TO’CH”‘s publication history.
Also, I just adore the way Les say “every day,” as though there are some strips that run on alternate days of the week, or only on special occasions (Didn’t “Friday Foster” only appear on Fridays?). Sunday-only strips don’t count.
Frankly, though, I was really hoping Cayla would say, “Sorry, I only read the comics online at the syndicate websites, so I can see the snarky and insulting things people say about the strips and their creators.”
These days the comments are better than the actual strip. This would not be true if Watterson and Breathed were still in syndication.
I’d LOVE it if Cayla snapped back with the “No, I left the comics page behind by the time I got to middle school!” or “I’m 49 goddamned years old! So why in the name of holy HELL would I spend my time with a strip aimed at teenage readers?!”
Third panel should read: Cayla: “Sheeeeeitttttt! I’d don’t care about that ole bullshit!!! You and Paw Paw get up on out of here!”
Ha ha ha! No one reads the fictional FW either! On the upside it makes it way easier to half-ass it for a million years…right Mr. “Thomas”?
And to the call of the sad trombone, Batton Thomas starts to look like Funky Winkerbean. Which means Batty is becoming what he hates!
Lisa really, really likes that.
So this entire sequence is going to be nothing but a showcase for Batiuk’s neediness and self-pity.
I’d say it’s also about how kids and younger adults are dumbasses who don’t appreciate comic strips these days, but that’s really just evidence of both of those things.
Oh why oh why don’t people take the comics seriously. Oh why did the Pulitzer Committee pass on Lisa’s Story.
Woe is me.
Panel #3: “Sorry…I just check the ‘Help Wanted’ and “Roommate Wanted’.”
Oh my god, this is going to be a straight week of Les mansplaining to his wife, isn’t it?
Yes – and if we’re really bad he’ll mention that this was the dead St. Lisa’s favorite strip.
This comes from the same mind that had it be a shocking twist that a woman was a video game champ so having Cayla be cast as a beefwit for finding the funnies a waste of time is to be expected.
Look at the expression on “Batton Thomas” in the third panel. Other than Les at Lisa’s funeral, have we ever seen anyone in Funky Winkerbeanthat upset about anything? When loved ones get cancer and die, they just smirk it off. But Cayla not reading “Three O’clock High” – that’s worthy of a true sad face.
I just recently sent a “Jumble Collection” book to an elderly friend in California. I knew she needed something to keep her busy and that she liked puzzles. She is having a blast solving them.
That would not be the case had I sent her one of Batty’s Crap Collections.
Probably should have sent both. One for the entertainment value and the other for the toilet paper shortage.
Batty’s books would have depressed her more. Good thing it doesn’t rain much in California, or else I would find her sitting upstairs staring out her window.
It’s funny because Lester knows Jack Fucking Shit about the woman he’s actually married to; yet he can recite by memory the time, date, and location of every time he and Lisa had intercourse, along with the position, state of undress and total number of climaxes…
He doesn’t need to know. She brings him cookies and hot chocolate while he’s writing. That’s all he needs from her.
Why should he? Cayla, like Adeela, is just a prop used so Batty can brag that his strip is a quarter inch from reality and can speak to everyone equally. Bleh…everyone is equally turned off by this tripe.
Besides it’s too much work to show what people from different backgrounds actually do or think.
Batty can just point and say “diverse”…see.
In all fairness, “zero” is an easy number to remember.
My apologies – I didn’t refresh the page, so I didn’t see your comment until mine posted! I hate to step on someone else’s line!
Not that “zero” for Lisa is all that difficult to keep track of.
And “Batton Thomas”?!
He-who-shall-not-be-named isn’t even trying anymore, is he? And I thought Lester was always supposed to be the “official” author avatar?
You know what? I’d have a modicum of respect if Batiuk just cut the bullshit pretense and introduced his REAL-named self in the strip as the author of Krankenschaaften… I won’t even begrudge him if he wants to bang on the fourth wall and have Cayla say “doesn’t that name sound kinda familiar?”
Yes, I get it… You’ve been in the game for 48 years, you can see the finish line in the distance, and you’ve earned the right to indulge yourself… Fine, go crazy, whatever… Just *STOP* wasting our time by spending a week having Lester explain who Batton Thomas is, and why anyone should give a rat’s ass…
What are you saying. Having Batton Thomas show up is a totally logical plot development, not in any way a reflection of the actual author’s view.
Totally logical…
I suspect that we are about to be treated to a lecture on how Pogo, Krazy Kat, Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts, Doonesbury, and Bloom County are mere childlike scribbles compared to the seminal depth and artistry that is Three O’Clock High.
Doesn’t T.B. know that if he does this too much he’ll go blind?
Hint, the answer rhymes with “wreck”…
Bravo! Nicely done.
You read my mind! I was hoping someone with skills would do this!
Well done!
Brilliant. I stand in line.
I forgot the second L in RALEY on purpose, or so I hope to convince everyone here…
I just figured it was RELAY.
And I rilly believe you, too.
I think the circle over the 2nd letter in the 4th clue, should be over the 4th letter instead? I offer my BENP card!
Never let it be said that I am unwilling to work with editors.
Bloody brilliant