See? “Awarded”? It’s like getting an award–something a certain cartoonist has never achieved!
I don’t know what purpose Adeela serves, except to fulfill a diversity quotient in hopes of attracting the attention of an awards group or two. The thing is, he already had Khahn, who was a Muslim, and who was available as a worker at Montoni’s but then he decided to give him his own shop and then wrote him out. Why try again? Has there been an uptick in awards for this sort of thing? The blandness of the dialog in panel three makes me think so.
In contrast to some of the earlier episodes of this arc, the artwork here is very slapdash. To coin an oxymoron, it’s decidedly slapdash.
Son of Stuck Funky 
I guess she hasn’t quite grasped the fact that’s she’s a prisoner in the Funkyverse.
“That’s” should be “that”, that’s for sure. Oops.
Westview is like old-timey Glasgow, but with pizza instead of coal mines. You toil all day in the mozzarella mill, get paid with some Montoni’s company scrip then return home to your tenement, coughing up garlic and bits of pizza crust all night. Clotheslines strung up between buildings with pizza aprons drying in the dull sun, street urchins begging for coins to buy comic books, street hustlers with pushcarts selling loose slices and mylar comic book bags, pregnant women racing to the mill in terror after hearing word of yet another oven disaster. Like Dickens, sort of, but with pizza.
“It was the best of whines, it was the worst of whines.” “It is a far, far better ‘Lisa’s Story: The Movie’ I make, than I have ever made before.” “We need never be ashamed of our tears…unless Les Moore puts them into a book.” “Please, Sir, I want some less Montoni’s pizza.”
Oh, crap. Here comes the “prestige arc.” This is gonna suck.
I can hear Batty shouting at the Pulitzer Committee as security drags him away: “Interracial marriage, gay prom, handicapped, er handicapable people, Muslims, look a hijab, I’ve done it all…why is nobody listening to me…”.
No one is listening to Tom Batiuk because he’s not saying anything.
Why is this a momentous decision? Did she think she might move back to Iraq?
Not likely, but considering the way things were going in the US, even a year ago, she certainly might have been considering Canada.
To move to Canada she’d need to take her language assessment, provide an education credential assessment proving she’s a skilled worker (I’m guessing skilled architects don’t work at Montoni’s), provide either a provincial nomination, proof of a job offer, or proof of $13,000 in cash (for a single person). Also, she’d need to provide 10 years of proof of no past criminal activity in any country she lived in during that period, and many more things on a different page of the Google document.
She’s already in the US, why not stay and go down with the ship!
She’s already just like the rest of them, willfully stupid and more or less satisfied with spending day after day in that horrible pizzeria interacting with the imbecilic locals instead of, you know, architecting, like she came to America to do. The “gee whiz I’m just happy to be here!” immigrant is an ancient trope and while it’s not especially implausible or objectionable in any way it doesn’t really make for a compelling or even slightly interesting story, plus it’s been done countless times already. Which is a huge plus in BatYam’s book, of course. Why give Adeela a distinct personality when “easy-to-please grateful immigrant” is right there?
This actually brought tears to my eyes.
From rolling them so hard.
I was under the impression that Adeela came to the US as a child. She apparently has been here long enough to get a degree in architecture. Would getting a driver’s license really be the tipping point for her to decide to seek citizenship?
According to the Act III summary on this site, Adeela was unable to get a job in early 2019 due to her lack of citizenship. All of which raises the question of what her resident status is. If she had a student visa, those typically expire quickly after course completion, and she would be overstaying by now. If she was here as a child, her family must have gone through some serious vetting, considering they were coming from Iraq at the height of the post-9/11 invasion of that country. Not that Batiuk cares about getting such details right, or even remembering his characters’ origins.
Unless Ohio is like California, and there is a special class of drivers license available to people not in the country legally, I would assume the BMV would have checked her residency status when she got her learners permit and/or her license.
Adeela was also enrolled in college, so I imagine legal residency status was confirmed then, too.
And Batiuk says “What is this ‘imagine’ of which you speak in the language of English?”
Wally hired her at Montonis so she could get a work visa.
Really? The strip said that?
She feels free here? IRONY ALERT! Les Moore is about to enter the scene!
Interesting it’s the male doing most of the speaking for her. Has her life really changed so much?
Grated Expectations
That was supposed to be a reply to Epicus Doomus’ literary post above. I don’t know how it got here.
Hey, Cootie! Quit standing around! That countertop won’t polish itself!
Gotta appreciate the self-satisfied smirk on Cory’s mug in panel one. “It took a week and a half, but that counter is so immaculate you could eat off it…well, a customer could eat off it, if we had any customers…and they would have to, because we don’t have any plates or napkins. But look, you can even see the self-satisfied smirk on my mug. Well, better grab my rag and get back to wiping off the counter.”
Also, why is Wally putting his arm around Ardeela instead of his “Date Night” buddy who he completely forgot about?
I’m going to guess TB sent Khahn to the cornfield because back in Act II he gave Kahan a personality. Too much work remembering that the guy had a snarky attitude, a pragmatic outlook on his place in war-torn Afghanistan, liked chess, and somehow knew pizza, much less writing to any of those traits.
Adeela’s personality is that she wears a hijab. Much easier to write for, and much easier to let readers know “THIS CHARACTER IS MUSLIM, SEE?!” than Khahn.
Gone back to having Wally speak for Adeela, I see. What a paternalistic git.
“I feel free here and want to make it my home,” when there’s no indication what “here” is or even what feeling “free” means. Has Batiuk ever written a sentence that wasn’t awkward or tortured?
Rachel’s never gonna have that depressing date night at work, is she? And why couldn’t Adeela make her own announcement? (Of something I’d presumed she’d already done anyway?)
1. So I guess Walter and Rachel completely forgot they ever scheduled a date night, right?
2. There’s about a million small-town Ohio/Trump cracks I could make here, but y’all know me well enough to guess how most of them would sound, so let’s skip it…
“. . . and I know to schedule five minutes in the cellar at 11:00 am on the first Monday of the month when the county tests the sirens!”
MEANWHILE, IN CALIFORNIA — Sadly no mythical underground steampunk sci-fi queens have appeared to save everyone.
This is the Merced Fire Department *retreating*, but we’re supposed to believe Masone and Les drove through it multiple times:
And while Masone and Marianne were trading smirks over Lisa’s Legacy Run, the have-nots are choking to death:
https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-09-23/the-luxury-air-business-is-booming-as-many-californians-struggle-to-breathe
Hey, this strip is supposed to be a quarter-inch from reality, right??
Jesus.
Sometimes, when I’m lying in bed at night thinking about the state of the world and trying not to become too sad to sleep, I like to think about things that comfort me and bring me joy, like my family, my friends, and-
Well yes, educators-turned-entertainers who are afraid of words, afraid of ideas, and afraid of criticism are just hilarious!
Anyway, where was I? Oh! Well, I also just like to read my collected editions of my absolute favourite webcomic: Gunnerkrigg Court!
Now, I know that the early art is a little bit of a challenge, but I’d gently like to remind you that webcomics started out as a “naive art” medium in so many ways. Also, we’re currently in the middle of a storyline that involves a LOT of deep cuts and throwbacks to previous material, so it’s all a little bit too complicated to start following mid-stream… Oh, and there are massive spoilers.
But did I just hear “mythical underground steampunk sci-fi queens”?! Well, if Gunnerkrigg hasn’t got them, they can easily fit into the docket. One of my favourite chapters (aside from a quiet and introspective look at the “life” of an immortal throughout the billions of years of Earth’s existence) is a fun little arc where Annie and Kat and a large chunk of the tertiary supporting cast get invited to go on a school-sponsored cruise with ughhhh chaperones and rules and uggghhhh someone’s awkward not-boyfriend from several chapters ago is HERE….
And then the sentient cruise ship goes insane and traps them all inside of itself. And things just get crazier from there in ways that I honestly cannot even begin to describe, not because I lack confidence in my words, but because I would be here for hours trying to explain how it all just “works” in context…
But anyway, I could go on but I just don’t have the time! What I will leave you with is my currrent favourite page.
… Oh, and I suppose you might also be able to jump right into this tribute to old-timey adventure serials.
Tom, man. What a legend.
Oh… uh, actually I meant Tom Siddell. Who were you talking about? I’d hate to make you feel as if you haven’t been properly heard, that’s so rude. So they were… uh huh… mm hmm… well i do like pizza i guess… And I guess it’s nice to finally have a driver’s license?
…
You know, I really do have to get going. Lots of love!