Epicus Doomus

BuddySlog

Cue the sad trombone sound because it’s still raining and Cindy’s still getting fired for being so old and washed-up. Yep, again! It’s why she’s considering the Buddyblog offer, in fact. Well, that and the “low res”, of course. It’s a little disconcerting how Tom Ban appears to be playing this woman’s total mental and emotional destruction for laughs but then again she did kind of have it coming after being so beautiful and successful for all those years. Although it is encouraging to see that she’s stayed right on top of news media transformations, though. Because who the hell saw that coming, right?

The “bo peep” thing is one of those bizarre FW punchlines that’s only funny because it’s so ludicrously bad. I mean I know he’s aiming for a sort of “Jerry & Elaine”-style banter here but nope, big swing and a miss. “X-man”, “bo peep”, if Cindy appeared more often I think she’d skyrocket up the “most annoying characters” list, you know?

Duh, Actually

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Hey gang, Epicus here to steer the S.S. SoSF through the rest of this…thing. Special thanks as always to the entire SoSF crew!

I really love it when one of Tom Ban’s carefully crafted little stories comes together all at once like this. You see, it’s not just all about how dumb, useless and stupid The Internet is, oh my heavens no. It’s also about Cindy and how her rapidly-escalating ugliness has reached a point where she’s just too haggard and hideous to be on TV anymore…even in Cleveland. Thus she has a hidden motive for seriously ACTUALLY considering “Buddyblog’s” offer, as in her opinion the internet’s “low res” video is just the thing to disguise her grotesque appearance enough to extend her pathetic dying career for a few more months, at which point she’d just be too old and grossly-deformed to do much of anything at all anyhow. Sounds like a plan!!!

Strong female characters bursting with “can-do” self-esteem aside, why do I get the impression that the Batom Inc. studio plays host to an old Packard Bell box (with zip drive!) running Windows 98? These hilarious internet gags would have played a lot better in 1999, but here in 2015 they just make him look silly. And boy, is he chew-toying the ever-living hell out of Cindy or what? Ever since she was demoted for being so heinous and old, every appearance has centered around how heinous and old she is now. It’s relentless.

And check out the Funk-Man in panel two. You can at least pretend to care, Funky.

Glean On Me

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Mason’s been in town for a day or two and he’s already making with the wry remarks and the eyebrows like he’s Les Moore’s long-lost half-brother or something. Also note how he’s in the proper comic book reading position, on the floor like a child. And how the hell is he speaking without opening his mouth in that last panel? He’s seriously going to read four hundred SJ comics (including all bronze, silver, gold, platinum and diamond keys with corresponding ashcans) on Holly’s sofa? Good lord, this arc could take years to finish…IF he decides to finish it at all, that is. Because he might not, you know.

Today’s punchline references events presumably taking place in the pages of a fictional comic book that only fictional comic strip characters have read. Think about that for a moment. These disturbing comic book fantasies of his have progressed to the point where he’s basing jokes upon scenes that only exist in his mind. Obviously his “vision” of SJ includes lots of property damage, which makes it all very amusing to him, but what good does that do anybody else? We’re reaching a point where you have to understand the inner workings of BanTom’s comic book-addled brain in order to decipher the dialog and make sense of the jokes. We’re through the looking glass here, people.

Coming later this year: Having gained eighty pounds during his stay, Mason decides to quit showbiz in favor of staying in Westview. He moves into Les’ house and takes the longbox delivery job at Komix Korner. Then, after wrecking the Kornermobile in an accident, an MRI reveals a brain tumor. Then the story abruptly cuts to Owen complaining about the cafeteria food and Mason isn’t mentioned again until a scene where we see his tombstone in the background of an unrelated panel on Mother’s Day.

And this concludes my latest SoSF stint. Thanks to TFH, the SoSF staff and most of all, you, the snarkers who make it all possible. Stay tuned for our next guest host and a virtual font of obscure FW knowledge…billytheskink! Good luck and godspeed, billy!

A Game-Laming Arc

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I told ya, a big box of f*cking comic books. Any military folks out there care to tell us what would happen if you were deployed in Afghanistan and requested emergency “celebrity coming to my mom’s house to read comic books” leave? I’m guessing the answer would somehow involve push-ups, lots of potatoes and/or mops, if not an involuntary psych hold.

Then there’s the art, where Cory is twelve, Holly has Crankshaft’s schnozz and the backgrounds are blank and sort of surreal looking. What, is drawing the Winkerbean’s living room just too challenging or something? The guy draws thousands of bricks but can’t manage a lamp and a table? And Holly’s deranged comic book collecting fantasy dialog is overshadowed by the Corporal’s cruel jibe about her obesity. I thought he’d outgrown that sort of thing, although she did have it coming after all that “platinum key” bullshit she started spewing. Call it a draw there.

But the really noteworthy thing here is that Holly has apparently already given Cory the SJ collection “off-screen”, so to speak. That’s right, after a year of premise-flogging and idiotic comic book collecting fantasies, the Great Author totally blew off the big emotional climax and premise-resolving scene of his own story. It’s laughably inept “storytelling” at its worst, the intelligence-murdering work of the laziest madman ever set loose on the funny pages. There’s no need to ever “expose” him as a hack with a total disregard for his (assumed) readers, it’s all right there on the freaking page.

I was going to say that someone should tell Mason that it’s a SJ movie, not a SJ collecting movie. But (shudder) what if it IS a SJ collecting movie? You know, where Mason plays a demented SJ collector forced to navigate the seedy comic book collecting underground and so on. While I seriously doubt BanTom would go that far, I definitely wouldn’t bet against it because you just never know with FW.

God Bless You Mary Sue, Wherever You Are

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This one’s a real puzzler. Why would BanTom resort to an Act I retcon job here? Les wasn’t a “published author” until a few years ago, so his retconned Mary Sue memory is less than totally irrelevant here, not to mention totally out of place. I think Mason was just trying to be polite, or perhaps it’s just nervousness over being forced to ride in that very unsafe-looking Batiukmobile while Les is all hunched over the steering wheel in a most peculiar way.

I can’t believe they’re already on their way to visit the Winkerbeans. I figured it’d take weeks if not months before the story progressed that far. Then again, you know he’s just chomping at the bit to get back to those comic book fantasies again. After all, it’s been like a week and a half since comic books were front and center. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and predict that we’ll see a big box of comic books by the end of the week. Call it a hunch.