“Adeela exited Montoni’s carrying a pizza for delivery. She walked through Montoni’s front door toward the delivery car. The car had a Montoni’s decal on the door. Adeela opened the door and placed the pizza inside the delivery car. The ICE agent watched from the shadows. He used his phone to alert the other agent about Adeela’s departure.”
Right there, that explains the lack of Pulitzers. Once again BatNard has written a story that consists entirely of plot holes. Oh, and padding…a shit-ton of padding. They can’t just go and arrest Adeela, they have to go through a whole logic and continuity-defying process first, for no other reason than to make the goddamned story longer. Remember, this is Adeela’s very first delivery, thus the ICE agent either a) got really lucky, b) bugged Montoni’s or c) has a mole on the inside. Maybe Rocky finked Adeela out in an attempt to get more screen time.
Son of Stuck Funky 
“The subject is on the move.”
“Screw the subject, what about the story?”
“Here? Get serious!”
Panel 1: Wearing a bag over your head can make driving difficult, but it’s very convenient for ICE when they arrest you.
The neighbors must get sick and tired of hearing Batiuk shout, “Nailed it!” each time he finishes a strip.
“Hey there neighbor!”
“Oh, hi Tom (sigh).”
“I noticed you were raking leaves.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It gave me an idea for a story! I thought it’d be very funny if Funky was raking leaves and a big gust of wind came along and…”
“Oh, sorry Tom, gotta go, the wife is calling me.”
“I didn’t hear anything…oh…right.”
Look at Adeela’s feet in panel one, they’re like little hooves. This is some of the least necessary artwork in FW history. And look how the lettering on the car decal is all crooked, like it was drawn by hand by a ten year old. Which it no doubt was.
I choose to believe that Ayers has been letting his grandson draw the strips for him. It teaches the kid the family business, and leaves more time for betting on snooker.
But isn’t letting a minor work for Batiuk some form of child abuse? Should we alert CPS?
Well, yeah, but look at all those super-neat brick pavers!
Where are the tables and seats that usually clutter the sidewalk in front of Monotony’s? Have they already been pulled inside for the winter? If so, why weren’t we shown that? It would have had more action than today’s misfire.
If memory serves me right, Funky has depicted hauling the outdoor furniture in a Sunday strip within the last month or so. I’d say something about the summer ending early and the lack of dine-out seating during the current crisis, but we all know that crafting a saga this elaborate and well-planned takes a year of preparation and cannot be changed at any point in the process.
ICE is running a sting where they order delivery from Montoni’s and hope Adeela delivers it? Have they just been ordering pizzas until they get her out of the restaurant? Cindy goes into documentary filmmaking with clearer plans.
TB does deserve an award for this… it is quite possibly the most deeply stupid thing to have ever appeared in a newspaper.
I dunno… That entire wildfire and cave storyline was pretty damned stupid
It’s like “The Wire” except in Westview, with pizza. The agents make small controlled pizza buys but instead of just busting the suspects right away they lay back and observe the inner workings of the pizzeria, looking for patterns and hoping they can smoke Adeela (who was just at the BMV and the discount fabric store just a few days ago), out of hiding.
After cracking the delivery driver’s schedule code, they overwhelmed Cory with two orders at once, thus forcing Adeela to do the delivery. They’ll pick her up a few blocks from Montoni’s, away from prying eyes, bring her in and offer her a deal if she’s willing to wear a wire.
Either that or the story is so pitifully weak and sad he needed to pad it with a solid twenty-one days of totally needless plodding filler. I guess we’ll have to see how it all plays out. Unlike “The Wire”, in the Funkyverse none of the pieces matter.
Either that or the story is so pitifully weak and sad he needed to pad it with a solid twenty-one days of totally needless plodding filler.
Hey now, I’m sure that if the first two weeks of this story hadn’t happened, literally everybody reading this would have wondered how Adeela was making a delivery when she doesn’t have her driver’s license!
That is a terrifying insight into Batiuk’s “creative process”, as well as the only detail of this story that makes any sense so far. She got her license and now she’s driving.
Can I just say that your “USA!” avatar is most excellent!
Having a friend and co-worker suddenly taken away by ICE should be a gut-wrenching story. But Mr. Pulitzer Nominee is incapable and/or unwilling to portray any genuine human emotion. So he does what he always does, which is focus on the most banal things and draw them all with silent cliffhanger panels. Meanwhile, Les’ internal struggle with letting someone else watch his stupid Dead Lisa videos is treated like Sophie’s Choice.
Yes once again we see that Batiuk to once again borrow Teddy Roosevelt’s judgement of William Howard Taft “he means well feebly”
So when they arrest Adeela, they’ll scare and piss off locals who are also getting cold pizza? Great grasp of the situation, Batty.
If they’re outside of Montoni’s anyway why didn’t they just go in and arrest her there? ICE conducts workplace raids all the time.
And I don’t think they’d even need a search warrant since the restaurant is a public accommodation. (Although I’d have to check on this to be sure.)
Because then the story would move too quickly, which might raise expectations going forward, which might eventually cut into one of BatYam’s 51 weeks off. Why risk it?
I’ve got a news flash for everyone. If ICE lets Adeela deliver that food before making their big bust, they’ll be some Montoni’s customers “on the move” an hour or two later…if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
Yeah, ICE got lucky on that, since Cory was all set to do the delivery himself.
“Sheer dumb luck” is not a tool in a competent writer’s box.
“The ICE agent either a) got really lucky, b) bugged Montoni’s or c) has a mole on the inside”
…or (d) that’s not an ICE agent. It probably has something to do with the movie, for some really strange reason. Why would ICE wait to go after her if they knew where she works? Is it that hard to get a warrant with the pizzeria’s address on it?
Todd, take a bottle of Mir-a-lax, mix it in a gallon of Gatorade, drink it down in an hour, and you will be moving faster than this “story.”