billytheskink

Gallup and Doper

Just look at today’s strip. Kids these days… I tell ya.

With their chullos and their scarves and their short haircuts and their closed circuit television broadcasts and their disagreeable opinion polls and their polka dot boxer shorts that they expose to the world because they refuse to properly tighten their belts because they are all disrespectful punk hoodlums who will destroy America after we retire.

Those ungrateful seniors want to chose where they go on a trip meant to celebrate their impending graduation. How dare they?
Not that Owen, Cody, and company have earned much sympathy from us over their decade at Westview High School, but given that they endure Les and Kablichnick on a daily basis, they are definitely the lesser of two evils here. I politely applaud their efforts to stick it to the administration via sarcastic opinion poll.

Youth will be served… Pepperoni

Oh good grief… Funky had to go and open up the can of worms that is Durwood’s age in today’s strip.

Holly does her level best to draw my fire away with a “joke” related to the major Christian holiday that is NOT the one less than a week away, but it is to no avail. I’m sure Jessica’s laughing was annoying and Holly’s joke succeeded in quieting her down, but the statement that set up the joke remains. When commenting about how young Darin and Jess look, one ought have a rough idea of how young they are. Instead, we have this:

If you can do better, you are quite welcome to try.

Dashing in Darin, Outrageously Blaring

SURPRISE!
Today’s strip features Mason’s evil twin, back from his supposed death at the La Brea Tar Pits.

Wait, sorry, that’s not right. HERE AS EXPECTED! It’s Durwood, who we should have expected because TB has taken a major interest in him this year. He’s been a major player in 6 story arcs in 2015 (based on mentions in SOSF’s excellent arc-by-arc summaries), more than Crazy, Lefty, Dinkle, Owen and Cody… as many as Summer and Cayla got combined, and they essentially shared two of theirs. Every single one of these appearances deals with essentially one thing, by the way, his ability to illustrate comics and storyboards. Yet, we have not once actually seen this ability in the entirety of Act III.

SURPRISE! Pop quiz!
When returning to your hometown for Christmas or some other holiday occasion, whom do you visit first?

A. The wife and child you left behind to move west for work, the former whom you haven’t seen in nearly a month and the latter whom you haven’t seen since August.

B. The parents who adopted you and raised you from infancy, one of whom is crippled and surely difficult for the other to take care of.

C. Your former high school teacher who was married to your biological mother and who allowed you to live in his house for quite a while when you and your wife returned to town. Your half-sister may or may not be there too.

D. Your former boss and landlord and his wife at their dingy pizza joint.

Schmaltz of the Foulers

I honestly don’t know how to read today’s strip. Really, no idea at all.

I suspect TB wants us to take Cindy’s overly maudlin metaphor and Funky’s seemingly-pleased reaction to it at face value, something that is rather difficult to do if you have a history of reading this strip. Funky and Holly are fairly amicable ex-es these days, but simply knowing that they are ex-es opens this up to interpretations such as Cindy rubbing her new beau in Funky’s face or Funky’s “So Mason’s the one?” being delivered with sneering sarcasm (“I was the one once too…” he mutters under his breath). Understanding that this takes place in the thoroughly unpleasant Batiukverse makes these alternate interpretations seem even more likely, as they fit the generally sour mood of this strip.

I’m actually more interested in the conversation going on at the other side of the room. Presumably, Mason is complimenting Holly on the Christmas decorations she bought at Dollar General 5 years ago, but maybe he’s just really excited about seeing a flat, printed cut-out of Santa Claus. Perhaps he is showing her the pose he does on the Starbuck Jones movie poster. Or maybe I just start inventing background stories when TB’s writing doesn’t hold my interest…

The sixty four dollar question

OK, so today’s strip is the one that reveals Cindy’s real reason for visiting Westview and Montoni’s with Mason, she desperately wants to convince him not to move to Westview once they’ve married. It’s not a bad strategy, after all, what better argument against moving to Westview is there than the current state of Westview lifers Funky and Holly?

Mason is a strange bird though (not just visually), and I guess is supposed to have developed some bizarre affinity for Westview when he visited back in February to read Holly’s collection of Starbuck Jones comics. In fact, his relationship with the town has been far more romantic than his relationship with Cindy ever has.

This looks like an uphill battle, but if Funky and Holly aren’t enough, Cindy can lay down the fact that Roger Miller’s “This Town” was written about Westview.