Cindy’s jocular brand of cynicism is almost as annoying as Les’ face is. Almost, but not quite. I guess the gag here is supposed to be how little Les’ students respect him, which seems believable enough, I suppose. Speaking of annoying, Mason’s bizarre hair strand is a real rage trigger, especially the way he crammed it in there in panel one, where it actually trespasses into the word balloon, annoyingly enough. And what’s up with Cayla’s heavily-sedated smirk? You can tell she’s originally from out of town.
Author: Epicus Doomus
V.P. at SoSF. Does not approve of new WP layout at all.
Massholes
I don’t know what Mason is doing to that slice there in panel two but it’s hard to believe it made it past the CK censors. Blech. This one is a visual nightmare, but at least he got Cindy’s hair color right this time.
So it’s “You’ll Hate Your Career Day” at WHS already, eh? Time sure does fly. Last year’s guest speaker, the former night manager at Montoni’s, dissuaded plenty of kids from choosing a career in pizza arts and Cindy is way more wry than he was, so IMO her talk will go over like gangbusters with Les’ class. They are, after all, at that age where pondering your future failure and unhappiness is very important, the decisions they make today are tomorrow’s regrets. Dream small, little Scapegoats, as it’ll soften the landing.
Requiem For A Dweeb
Leave it to The Great Author to put a new spin on the ol’ “delicate genius writes late night indecipherable note to himself” trope. In this example, instead of having it happen to a funny or entertaining or tolerable character, he used the single most loathsome character in the history of fiction instead. Dick Facey and Cayla Tyler Moore…the wryest couple on the wryest street in the wryest town in the wryest state, already in a state of full wryness mere seconds after opening their eyes in the morning. I need a solid hour and a half before I can form full sentences in the morning but these f*cking weirdos are literally wry in their sleep, ready to start smirking as soon as they’re conscious.
And on that note, it’s time to step aside and turn the microphone over to spacemanspiff85 for the next go round!
Silver-Tongued Drivel
I’ve often joked that if BatYak’s glacially-paced little “stories” moved any slower they’d start unfolding backwards, but I never thought it’d actually happen. But here we are, witnesses to his most brazen labor-saving contrivance yet…starting already in-progress arcs from the beginning again. He just did it with the Bull arc and now he’s doing it again by pretending that Melinda is just arriving at Funky’s house now, even though we all know this not to be the case. This isn’t just another nit-picky continuity error, he’s omitting entire story lines and just starting them over again like they never happened, which sort of defeats the entire “serialized” format itself.
I did enjoy the askew lampshade, traditionally used to symbolize disorganization/squalor/disarray and/or askewicity. It’s a delightful little touch, one that really drives home the point of how Melinda is unpacking and moving in after just arriving from Florida. It’s unusual to see such attention to detail in a story that just totally ignored literally every other detail. Melinda’s brutally downbeat response to Funky’s musty old attempted gag is classic Batiuk too, as having her crack a smile might be construed as a development in their vaudevillian mother-in-law/son-in-law relationship and God forbid he lets any character growth slip through quality control, as it could invalidate his CK contract and force him into the book signing circuit full-time. And no one wants that.
Lions And Funky And Holly…Oh My
One wonders why they’d go through the trouble of moving what appears to be a huge stone lawn ornament all the way to Ohio from Florida, but then again expecting this to suddenly start making sense now is just plain foolish. The stone lion sure is oddly specific, though. I assume it has to have some tenuous connection to BatHack’s “real” life, so to speak. Hopefully he just keeps that info to himself.
Coming tomorrow: Melinda’s in-ground swimming pool arrives, followed by the water on Sunday. It’ll be an Atomik Komix cover, of course…”Oceania”, the superhero who can move entire huge bodies of water by himself. The reality bubble will feature Funky and Melinda standing next to a large tanker truck as she complains about Ohio’s “hard water” as Funky looks on stupidly.
Son of Stuck Funky 