ComicBookHarriet

Ghosts of Strips Prescient.

And BOOM we’re there! Like TommyBats had suddenly remembered he didn’t have a Comic Con angle this year and so last-minute pulled this out of his self-aggrandizing ass.

As some of you may know, the Stuck Funky writer’s bullpen have no ability to preview Sunday strips. So, may I say, that I predicted today’s strip on Thursday nearly perfectly, and many commenters also guessed the Women-Be-Shopping angle.

And what kind of nonsense is that last panel? Long boxes? People buying and selling comic books? SDCC is dominated by the synergistic interests of megaconglomerates like Disney/Marvel/Fox/Lucasfilm and AT&T/Warner Bros/DC Comics. It’s a pop culture trade show, with booth after corporate booth, trying to generate buzz on the newest Netflix TV Show, Marvel Movie, Video Game, or Cartoon in order to increase stock prices based on predicted reception of a new release. It’s the nerd equivalent of wandering through the Varied Industries building at the State Fair, while people try to sell you hot tubs, massage chairs, and seamless gutters.

You want a folksy but crowded ‘farmer’s market’ of genuine nerds pursuing private enterprise? Don’t go to San Diego.

The Little Lines Mean Excitement.

Link to Today’s Comic.

Sorry for the late post again tonight, connection issues continue.

Funny how in that tux Crazy starts to look like the South Bend Shovel Slayer from Home Alone.

It’s strange that the only way Batiuk has left to show Crazy being crazy is shouting and over-exuberance, when in the old days, from what I’ve seen, it was actually crazy ideas…being presented by a laid-back pseudo-stoner.

Of course DSH isn’t going to Comic Con again. He’s boring as mud. His original point was a vessel for Batiuk’s comic fandom, but now that comic fandom is the default for the male Westviewian, DSH has been rendered superfluous, only to show up now and then behind the counter in the comic shop, like a bartender in a city of drunks. I doubt Tom even knows why the storyline about DSH being a consultant on the Starbuck movies fizzled, but he at least subconsciously realizes that this poor sad sack is not needed to be the nearly mute sidekick of a sidekick parroting whatever inane reactions to the Crazy Harry Craziness that Les or Cayla could just as well spout.

Connection Issues

Link to Today’s Comic.

Internet is down at my apartment. So working off of my friend’s phone turned into the world’s coldest slowest hotspot. So I’ll keep this short.

All I will say is that it is very rude of Les to walk in on Harry and DSH when they’re trying on tuxes and rehearsing their wedding vows. And I had no idea DSH had left the-one-armed bandit, and Harry had divorced Mrs. Eliminator. But then again, when was the last time we saw either of them with their ‘wives’.

Two is Agony so Three’s a Clown.

Link to Today’s Comic.

Cayla seems to think that during their trip to Sandy Eggo they will actually get to ‘see the sights.’ Eat sushi in Little Tokyo, dance to mariachi music in Old Town, maybe go to the zoo to make interracial jokes about the pandas. (All things I made time to do during my Botcon San Diego trip.)

Obviously Les is planning the vacation will take place entirely within the confines of the San Diego Convention Center. Cayla will be lucky to drag him across Harbor Drive for a single sitdown meal that isn’t convention concessions food.

I’m guessing that she’ll spend most of the convention pressed against the glass in the Sails Pavilion, staring out the window wistfully at the Gaslamp Quarter; surrounded by things she neither understands nor cares for.

No wonder Les wants to bring Crazy Harry along. He wants a solid tie breaking vote in favor of skipping supper again to wait in the endless Hall H line for another seven hours.

Eisnerian Gothic

Link to Today’s Comic.

I would make some kind of comment on Caucayla not knowing the location of the awards because Wimmin Amirite? But apparently Les previously didn’t even know the award existed.

I’ve been to San Diego for a Botcon once in the summer. It was really nice coastal climate, and not any hotter or muggier than Midwestern summer can get. And since when has CauCayla been heat intolerant?

The second panel is pretty great though, with Darin fleeing from a conversation still taking place while Les and Cayla do their best impersonations of Queen Elizabeth, with a wave goodbye more wooden than Cigar Store Indians. Cayla has a halo around her head…perhaps a first miracle on her own path to sainthood?

This art is really starting to annoy me though. Everyone’s face has become interchangeable. You remember when Cayla had a broad nose and Darin had a beak? The artist sure doesn’t. He has two noses to use, C-shaped or L shaped, and he barely remembers which character gets which. Batiuk can’t be bothered to push Burchett for consistency of character design in a strip worshiping comics as an art form next to opera in importance.

Compare with yesterday’s Crankshaft with art by Davis. Look at that detail! He carefully drew the wedding picture on the wall as a totem of the romantic creature in Ralph that the drive-in waitress has reawakened in him.

All Les and Cayla get on their wall is the avant garde, “Grey Rectangle Against Grey Background.”