I miss the early days of the Internet. It was devoid of toxic social media, and full of goofy creative stuff. If you’re not familiar with the primitive brainrot the title refers to, you can see it here. (WARNING: It will burrow into your brain like those Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan worms. If you do recognize the title, it probably already has. Sorry about that.)
This week’s cardinal arc reminds me of Badger Badger Badger. There’s a cardinal, and… that’s it. It exists as part of a larger work that defies any narrative sense. It’s practically trying to be a meme.
I know I’ve joked about the cardinal being Lisa’s ghost, and that’s still the favorite on the odds board right now (-500). But now, dragging out Lisa’s corpse for the millionth time seems too straightforward for Tom Batiuk. He seems to be veering into the avant-garde. As evidenced by this week’s Ingmar Bergman coloring. (NOTE: I initially missed that this effect was borrowed from Schindler’s List. Thanks to Y. Knott in the comments.)
I say this because I was baffled by the December 13 strip that ended “Pizza Box Monster as Santa” week. He gets paid by Lillian, shakes her hand, and then this:
What on earth was Tom Batiuk aiming at here?
Yes, that’s the building where this week’s proceedings occurred, but what is the point of sticking it at the end of the story? The second panel, PBM saying “Pizza on earth!”, is the kind of thing Batiuk would normally use for a punchline. It’s almost like he drew this panel and forgot to use it, so he stuck it here.
Sometimes you can end a story just by pulling back and putting it into its larger context. Like in A Streetcar Named Desire (the stage version, not the movie) or Cameron Crowe’s Singles. But that’s not what’s happening here. This isn’t a scene of people wandering around, enjoying Christmas, or anything else that would lend weight to the story. Not that there was much of a story to begin with.
I think Tom Batiuk is trying to mimic visual effects, and heartwarming endings, he’s seen in movies and TV shows. But he has absolutely no idea how to execute them, or why. That’s what I think we’re getting at the end of this week: an ornately staged, but confusing, ending.
UPDATE (December 19): And with this morning’s strip, Batiuk’s true intentions are revealed:
Son of Stuck Funky 
Warning! This video is addictive!
I’m sorry that this video is so huge! I only meant to post a link to YouTube. Then again, I mean to do a lot of things.
No worries. What happens when you post a link or picture in the comments is anybody’s guess.
It’s a business, sort of, and the stairs (can any business in the Batiukiverse (aside from pizzerias) ever just be on the ground floor in a normal building?) are covered in snow. It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. The last two weeks of December have always been mostly garbage dumps, where he’d use whatever junk he had lying around in the “reject” basket.
I would think the child slavery ar The Village Booksmith is a much bigger problem than the stairs. Remember, Lillian only recently started paying those twin girls.Who are drawn like they’re about 12 sometimes.
It’s an effect borrowed from Schindler’s List, which makes me think that there is Something Very Serious And Important that’s being led up to.
So yes, I can see why the oddsmakers are touting the appearance of Spirit of St. Lisa as a distinct possibility. This being Batiuk, however, other stupider possibilities are also in the mix. Like the cardinal being a herald of the re-release of The Phantom Empire in an new 35-mm print. Or singing an epic song about an appearance by Dinkle* (*as a drawing on a wadded-up napkin that will actually be stepped on by someone) marching in the Rose Bowl Parade…
Ah, THAT’S where it’s from. I didn’t make the connection.
The ending of last week’s arc could be an inept attempt at implying that PBM might actually be Santa. Today’s thing where the bird flies into the window and dies is a ham-fisted attempt at imparting a stupid moral about impermanence.
Lame artsy nonsense
Tom Batiuk’s cardinal sin
Call it panta retch
He has more than one cardinal sin. There is also the insistent need to make the bureaucratic obstruction in Yes, Minister look a friend to women.
That was a good post.
I didn’t notice at first
it was a haiku.
Someone should submit it to Das Sporkings.
Haiku tradition
Strong here at SOSF
Glad to see it still
Musical titles
are also recurring theme.
But does “Badger Badger” count?
The cardinal was presumably fed by Ghost Lisa, who kept the Lisa Moore Memorial Central Westview Bird Feeder topped off, as we learned a couple years ago. Is it starving? Perhaps it’s been begging for food and Pmm was too dense to realize it.
In any case, the only thing that can save this week now is to have Peter Griffin burst in with “Well everybody knows about the bird! A-well the bird, bird, bird, b-bird’s the word!”
Instead, we’ll get a nonconclusion, nothing will happen, and then… what are we betting on for Christmas? Any more murder weapons out there to be melted down into toys?
Maybe the bird isn’t Lisa. Maybe it’s Susan Smith. And she finally succeeded in offing herself. I’m happy for Susan.
Whatever he pulls out of his butt, Puff Tommy will be proud of it.
I’d forgotten all about that one. One of the more bizarre late Act III arcs for sure. I wonder how long it took for Boy Lisa’s dimwitted kid to put his eye out with that gun metal rocket ship? And you know the guys at the shady local foundry just kept the gun and made that rocket out of a bunch of old Miller Lite cans. At least that’s how I like to imagine it played out.
The most bizarre and unbelievable part was that if we take the fact that 10 years pass between Act II and Act III and then the time between the start of Act III and the gun story includes three graduating classes, Murdered John Darling’s Daughter should be around 40. Yet we’re expected to believe that in four decades of life she still knew nothing about her father? Despite the fact she was wondering about him since at least her teenage years and could have asked her mother, the murdered man’s widow, all about him at any time in the intervening 25-30 years depending on when it was she started wondering about him and wanting to know more? Or maybe just read the book about him that her husband’s step-father wrote?
Mitchell Knox kidnapping Jessica when she visits him so he can keep her in his basement as the ultimate piece of John Darling Show memorabilia would have been more believable than the story’s core motivating idea.
Today’s Crankfuckery
Day 5 of Pam and Cardinal Week
(Garfield sprints over to the bird and takes it)
Garfield: Don’t mind if I do (sprints off)
(for those who don’t know, Garfield (in his own comic strip) has a habit of eating birds)
Is it wrong that I laughed at today’s strip?
Also, new Match to Flame, from the Complete Funky Vol. 15.
Will Tom bother to tell us what this quip is? Not in this post. Does this surprise anyone? I’m guessing not.
Sure, Tom. Modesty. Also, how in the name of Zanzibar do you misspell “new”? And… you have an editor? Do they actually… you know, DO anything?
Are you sure it was actually Hal Foster, though? I hear he was a notorious art thief, like the way he once flagrantly stole art from Undead Phil Holt Before He Died But Then Didn’t. (Seriously, dude, if that’s how you present the artists you LIKE, I wouldn’t want to see what you do to the people you dislike…)
Those Match To Flames are so interminable because they ramble on at length taking so many words to say absolutely nothing of substance. There’s rarely an interesting anecdote or bit of insight to be gleaned from them, he just tells you that a thing happened or that someone said this or that but then will never actually relay the anecdote. Never a true hint to his creative process, what factors really motivated certain story choices or why he used or didn’t use certain character. The only time he ever goes into anything approaching depth is when it’s about him in a personal way that highlights what he considers to be a triumph or something that can be used for poor me pity points.
You want to know why, say, Act III was premised on “The Funky Kids are coming!” only for that to be a wet fart? Like, what caused the quick creative pivot from that to Les or why he became enamored with Mason(e) Jarr(e)? Too bad! But you will get endless paragraphs dedicated to hobnobbing in a restaurant with drawings on the wall, or about how groudbreaking Lisa’s pregnancy was, or that he got in a car accident.
He writes book intros like he writes his comics. The exact same style of bringing up something that could be interesting only to brush it aside to focus on boring things that nobody could ever care about, usually in relation to himself or his avatars. Who cares about why he seemed to get cold feet multiple times on hooking up Mopey and Chien when you can hear about the time Batom got the most delicious donut (a mediocre and slightly stale Krispy Kreme) while chatting with another C-list comic strip artist (What was said? Who cares? Just know that TomBa was talking to him). Want to know what happened in the intervening decade between Lisa’s death and the start of Act III? Booooooring, we need Les talking to a therapist about one small part of that and nothing else that’s what <s>Tom Batiuk</s> readers want!