beckoningchasm

The Les You Know-Part 3

Okay, perhaps Les’ students do know what a newspaper is, they’ve just never heard of the Westview Gazette. Some communities will have a main newspaper, with local and national news, weather, ads, and so forth; they might also have a smaller, more-locally focused paper that’s a sort of “goings-on around town” thing. They’ll have articles like “8 Signs You Should Replace Your Lawn Sprinkler” and “New Fish-Themed Restaurant Hopes to ‘Hook’ Diners.” That could be what we’re talking about here, but leave it to Batiuk to absolutely refuse to be clear.

As for the joke…well, I can’t find one.

Update: Well, I was wrong–the Westview Gazette is the town’s main paper. And it has been for some time. So, my attempt to excuse those darn kids’ ignorance was equally ignorant!

The Les You Know-Part 2

Link to today’s strip.

Okay, so the “joke” today is that kids are stupid and don’t know what a newspaper is. Pretty typical of the “jokes” he makes when the setting is high school. What I don’t get is that the Bleat crew, who make in-school videos, are also going to be writing copy for the local paper? Can they do this? Do they have any training? It should be obvious that writing for a newspaper is not the same as writing for broadcast; I guess Batiuk feels that some of the crew wear headphones, so that’s like a hat with a “PRESS” card in it, so they can do both. Right?

A podcast is probably more the Bleat crew’s speed, though I question the value of putting it on the county fair’s website. County fairs do their best to be colorful and eye-catching, so a video would probably be much better. (I’m assuming the Bleat crew could make a competent one.) My understanding is that a podcast is an audio file of people chatting. Would visitor’s to a fair’s website, upon seeing “Westview High Podcast,” click so they could hear “Look at the lights on that Ferris wheel!” “And these hot dogs are great, I’ve already had forty!”?

The Les You Know-Part 1

Link to today’s strip.

Naturally, when “officials” are worried that the county fair isn’t going to get enough publicity, they’re going to call the most important man in town–and he’s going to work tirelessly to make sure other people do the work.

So, Les being Les, he’s volunteering his students without asking them first. And he’s also volunteering their parents to drive them to school that day, unless Westview has a number of bus runs. (None of these students look old enough to do solo car school.)

I am puzzled as to exactly what the students are supposed to be covering–people putting up stands, spreading hay, making sure power receptacles are turned on and that the porta-potties are visible? Most of the fun activity at a county fair would happen after school hours, and on weekends…unless the fair is being held when school is out, which is clearly not the case here. Let’s not even mention that the school channel is not a broadcast channel, so the only coverage the fair will get from Les’ class will never leave the high school. I’d think a bunch of posters would do just as well, but then, I’m not an award-nominated cartoonist.

By the way, Batiuk teased a “Funky-Crankshaft” crossover story, taking place at the fair. Prepare to dread!

I’ve Got A Feeling I Don’t Want To Know

Link to today’s strip (eventually).

Sunday’s strip was–surprise!–unavailable for preview (although this is normal on Sundays. Or perhaps I should say, “normal.”)

This marks the fourth time I’ll have to spin something from nothing during this stint. How lucky can a guy be?

Using my precognition powers, however, I can preview Monday’s, and I’m going to issue a big red alert, WARNING: LARK’S VOMIT.

As for today’s, I assume that the “AK gallery showing” wrapped up with Saturday’s episode, because otherwise Batiuk would have to *gulp* *choke* show something happening. Horrors! So what will Sunday be?

I’ll guess “unrelated to anything else,” because that seems to be the go-to move these days…though Batiuk does enjoy “shaking things up” now and then, by which I mean, making them more boring, so who really knows? It’s been so long since we’ve seen Funky and Les running!

Of course, since he really loves showering praise on his awful characters, it might be a recap of the “Dullard’s art is so awesome it should be in a museum” blech. Excuse me while I vomit.

I’m back. Anyway, no matter what, we know what it won’t be–funny, insightful, well put-together or interesting in any sense. Wow, Tom Batiuk…you’ve really let yourself go.

PS: The titles of my last several Sunday entries are lines from the Velvet Underground’s “Sunday Morning.” Today’s is frighteningly apt.

You Don’t Know Jack

Link to today’s strip.

My understanding of the slang word “jack” is that it means “nothing,” or perhaps “a small amount.” Like the title of this entry, for example. “You don’t know jack” means “You know nothing about this subject.” “You get jack” means “You get nothing.”

Now, it’s been established that Batiuk has created his own world with its own ~~idiots~~ idioms. The thing is, your own private slang only really works when there isn’t a real-world version. He’s usually safe in this regard, as no human being has ever uttered things like “solo car date,” “vendo,” or “bio-dad,” but people use “jack” in the context I mentioned all the time.

Here, it seems to mean “money,” at least as far as I can fathom Pete’s meaning. “Jack,” used here, is such a square-peg forced into a round-hole (forced with a hammer, while the peg is screaming) that I’m thinking it might get added to the Batiukionary.

Normally, in most strips with a *cough* joke like this, the drawing in panel three would be a slight variation of panel two, with the two halves of the *cough* joke implying a character’s single bit of dialogue in a single moment. But I like to think that Pete said his dumb first line, then silently struggled to shoe-horn “jack” into his next sentence while everyone else ordered, paid, picked up their coffees and headed toward a table.