Frisket Business

Whew! I am so very happy to report that today’s strip doesn’t take place at the optometrist office, we’ve instead moved to a world where two Northern Ohio-based nonagenarian comic book legends are somehow meeting for the first time. It is, remarkably, a welcome respite.

Are we really supposed to believe that Flash and Ruby Lith, alleged fans of each other’s work, are meeting for the first time? Ruby Lith (hired in September 2019) wasn’t in the office during Flash’s last visit, when he dropped by to kvetch about “Turtle Thompson” (wait, was “Thompson” part of the guy’s nickname?) back in December 2019? Yes, Ruby Lith’s Miss American was a Capitol Comics title while Flash worked at Batom, but these two have both presumably been alive since the Coolidge administration working in the same industry in presumably a similar geographic area… they never met at a convention? Trade show? Art supply store? Comic book store? 3:30 PM dinner buffet?

While the plot seems a stretch, the puns today, however, are… well, they certainly are present. Though I incorrectly guessed her relation, I knew Amber Lith was coming. Really, I think we all knew Amber Lith was gonna be a gag in a Ruby Lith strip at some point. Didn’t see the dog’s related punny name coming, but it feels incredibly uninspired and unsurprising nonetheless.

Putting the “die” in dilate

Let us all sincerely hope that today’s strip is the end of “Funky terrorizes the optometrist’s office with his shmuckery.” Oh please please please! I ran out of things to say about it on Tuesday and since then I’ve been filling space with a Droopy photoshop done in Microsoft Paint, obscure 90s punk rock references, and my own experiences at the ophthalmologist. Today, I very nearly wrote 3-4 sentences in this post about what my cat was doing right now, but I’ve taken up too much of you all’s valuable time already. Well, at least I finally thought of something to say about this strip…

Speaking of drops, I’m thinking this country’s newspapers should do just that to a couple of comic strips.

No Contest

No, there is no respite from this week’s misery in today’s strip. Yep, Funky continues to make life miserable for the very medical professionals whose job it is to make his life suck a little less… medical professionals who are properly doing their job, I might add. This is the kind of shtick Les pulled back in Act I when we weren’t supposed to like him, thus further cementing Funky’s status in TB’s mind as Act III’s version of Act I Les, the dim and unlikable sap who all but deserves the awful life he leads. Of course, this is also the kind of shtick Les continues to pull, to be honest, but now he’s written as if we’re supposed to like him.

This line question is weird, though. I’ve been going to the ophthalmologist since I was a 10 year old who refused, to my mother’s certain exasperation, to wear any glasses that weren’t neon lime green and I’ve never once been asked which line is clearer. My ophthalmologist will regularly switch between lenses of different (high, in my case) powers and ask me which lens offered me a clearer view of the lines on a backlit chart, but I’ve never had to choose between lines. I’m not even sure how lines could be different clarities. Nevertheless, if my eye doctor did ask me to pick which line of two was clearer, I would answer “one” or “two”… y’know, like a human being who isn’t a miserable putz.

Futz Said Funky

Just two strips ago, Funky was being a pill to the office’s receptionist for a joke he completely walked into… and yet here he is in today’s strip indignant that Dr. Droopy won’t sanction his buffoonery. Stay in your lane, Funky. Les is supposed to be the guy who gets huffy when other people make jokes but then expects everyone to laugh at his pathetic stabs at humor.

I was going to suggest that Dr. Droopy here was being presumptuous here bringing up Captain Kirk, not that it would make Funky any less insufferable. I thought perhaps Funky was referencing the legend of Admiral David Farragut or perhaps he is actually a big fan of the band Pain, regionally-popular purveyors of late-90s pop punk (from whom I pilfered, purloined, and repurposed today’s post-title). But nope… a brief search of the SOSF archives reveals that, in a rare bit of Batiukverse continuity, Dr. Droopy is correctly referencing when Funky previously pulled this miserable excuse for a joke back in August 2019.

Callback or not, Funky ought to be tossed out of the doctor’s office window.

DVR You Serious?

ComCast your eyes away from today’s strip if you don’t want the unvarnished TRUTH! If this strip doesn’t make you believe in the conspiracy between big cable and America’s ophthalmologists, then I don’t know what will. The doctor all but admits it!

This doctor, though, I feel like I’ve seen him before…

Can’t quite put my finger on where, but I’ve definitely seen him before.