Oh, good, it’s Chullo and Glasses, back for an arc. Actually, it’s not good, but it could be worse. It could be Les.
And Glasses, no, you’re not a senior until you start senior year. That’s how it works. Here’s an example you’ll understand. If you want to go from your house to Montoni’s, you’re not AT Montoni’s as soon as you leave your house. You’ve still got all those steps to take.
No wonder it took Chullo and Glasses 14 years to get to senior year. They’re dumber than rocks.
This actually isn’t bad, although it’s a bit stretched for a Sunday episode. Credit where it’s due–Tom Batiuk has finally realized what an obnoxious a-hole Les is, so instead of having him deliver these puns, he has Cayla do it, where they are far less smirk-coated and can be appreciated (as much as puns can be, that is). If the roles had been reversed, this would have been one of the worst strips ever. The punchable smirk in the penultimate panel would have been woven throughout like a plague bacillus.
Mr. Batiuk even has Les accepting Cayla’s puns, instead of whineley squawking that all the attention isn’t on him. He actually looks proud of her. That’s progress of a sort. Maybe Cayla will actually start to come into her own as a character. (Doubtful, but who knows?)
The one puzzling aspect is Cayla’s expressions; she looks like she’s at a funeral. Especially odd is her look in that penultimate panel. But I think I’ve figured that one out. Cayla is beginning to understand what it is to be Les Moore, spouting endless puns for approval, and it smells pretty bad to her.
In short, good one, Mr. Batiuk–thank you.
Don’t misunderstand–this is like finding a raisin in a bowl of rabbit turds. You didn’t want a raisin anyway, and you’ve lost your appetite, but at least it is edible–unlike the rest of what’s in the bowl.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present the dumbest comic strip ever printed. Proof positive, as if any more were needed, that Tom Batiuk intends to do nothing except spin his wheels until the 50th anniversary.
Other than Pete’s paper-mache head-on-a-stick, I’ve never seen such a crass, blatant display of nothingness. In fact, it leaves me speechless. Lucky you! See you Sunday!
Well, this raises a few questions. What “disruption” is Darin talking about? When Jessica says they’ll “catch up” with him, does that mean a later flight? Or is she not going to California with him? Is she aware that Funky is preparing to rent the apartment out from under her? Not that her situation merits a single thought from anyone, since she’s a female–and we all know how important they are in this strip. Still, it would have been nice to see some of this “disruption” rather than that damned wentletrap Les waving his operculum around the last couple of days. I guess we get the fun of guessing what the “disruption” was.
What do you want to bet we’ll never know?
I dunno about the rest of you, but I find Darin such an unbelievably boring character–who at the same time, manages to be insufferable–that it’s hard to find anything to say about him. To the best of my (admittedly not very extensive) knowledge, he has accomplished nothing of note in the strip. Yeah, there’s the Pizza App, but that has had zero impact, other than as the butt of several jokes. He’s like a gangly, angular construct of ambulatory meat.
At least the other characters have interests, even if those interests are nothing more than comic books. At least that’s something. Darin seems to exist in a shell where he’s nothing more than the sacred essence of Lisa. I guess, in the viewpoint of some, that’s all you need to be to be considered worthy of attention–you’re somehow under Lisa’s shadow.
Thursday’s strip was not available for preview, so instead I’m going to speculate a bit.
Apparently Les is serious about writing Lisa’s Story – The First Shoe, a book about how he first met Lisa. And I’ll be damned if I can figure out what he can put into it.
Oh, I know he’ll talk about himself and his feelings. That’s no mystery. But I’m thinking that the events he can talk about would already be in the first book.
I know that in the real world, it’s a selection of newspaper comics, but in universe, it’s supposed to be a moving story of how Les suffered and yet was so caring and witty while terrible things happened around him. But again, in universe, wouldn’t he have provided some portrait of Lisa, telling how they’d met, how their relationship developed, and so on? Even if only in a forward, or a prologue? Otherwise, the reader is given a dying woman with no real reason to care at all. He has to have personalized her so that the reader can see what she means to him and thus connect to her story. That’s the title of the book after all.
…Though as we later saw, when he was writing the script he had no idea how to portray Lisa until Cayla dug out her diary. Honestly, that makes the in universe book even worse in my opinion–it is nothing but all Les, all the time.
Here’s my crack at the opening of the in universe Lisa’s Story. Feel free to submit your own in the comments!
“This is a story of unbelievable pain, unbelievable suffering, yet holding aloft the intelligence, the humility, and the wit to survive it all. It’s also the story of how my wife died, and how I was there for here…even before she knew me.
“To begin at the beginning, I always found high school to be beneath my natural gifts. Because I couldn’t conform downward, I naturally became the outcast. Barely understood by most, yet mindful of their jealousy, I did my best to keep my grades up and my sights higher. Unappreciated by the teachers, I was well on my way to a ‘mediocre’ high school experience when one day I met someone who I knew would love me. Unlike those damnable others.
“Her name was Lisa. And I was the best thing that ever happened to her.”
I think I’ll stop here, I’m creeping myself out.
Son of Stuck Funky 