Never Forget Whatshisface

SosfDavidO here! And we’re kicking off this week’s arc with a mysterious stranger! Who could it be in today’s teaser? More importantly, does anyone care? It could be any one of the 21,836 characters that have popped into Westview in the past 40+ years or it could be a retconned character pulled out of thin air. Les’s brother Stanley! Sure, why not?

Wood You Leaf Me Alone

Well well, look who is slumming it with the rest of the non-Hollywood crowd in today’s strip, none other than Crazy Harry and Dead Skunkhead! I wasn’t sure they’d make it, but I guess they scraped up enough cash and thankfully for Jon I guess there’s no schools or daycares within 1000 ft of the convention.

Panel 2’s background is a mite cluttered but it looks like Crazy Harry is about to lose his sandwich to a guy in Guardians of the Galaxy cosplay. Because hey, the first movie came out a year ago so why not! Skunky’s face in panel two, meanwhile, is sliding so much he looks like he’s morphing into a human skateboard.

Cinema Sins of the Father

SosfdavidO here, with the biggest shovel I could find because even for Tombat’s writing, today’s strip reeks of absolute bullshit.

So what age is Mason now? I’m going to be kind.. KIND, mind you, and peg him at 32. He’s probably more like 35 but for the sake of argument, he’s 32.

Now it’s time for some simple math, courtesy of Wikipedia.

List of Serial Movies by Decade

Perusing the list, one can see that the last gasp of serialized movies happened the mid-50s and the end of the space soap operas like Starbucks Jones ended around 1953, when all of America collectively got a cowboy fetish.

So if Cliff was 32 in say, 1952, that would mean he was born in 1920. NINETEEN F***ing TWENTY. That would make him just shy of 98 years old. Does the grey haired dude in panel 2 look 98? Or even 78!?

Maybe it’s the whole thing is CG and Cliff just had to croak out a few lines but even looking at him strolling around the streets without as much as a walker is some Grade A Bullshit Tommy is slinging there.

Maybe we can pretend the time jumps that hit Westview every couple of decades work in reverse wherever the hell Cliff Anger came from. Was that New York?

Sizzle Lean

SosfdavidO here, fresh off my rant from yesterday about how unlikely it is that Darrin, who had only a passing interest in art in high school, is suddenly Hollywood’s Golden Boy when it comes to story-boarding.

Deep breath…

My disbelief extends well into today’s strip, where with only a off-hand passing mention we’re supposed to believe Cindy is hard at work on a documentary movie about the original Starbucks Jones actor.

Sure, it’s been mentioned she was working on it before, but land sakes, this is a major life event for Cindy and she seems to devote 2 hours a year to it at most. Will this movie ever see the light of day? Just how many damned movie projects are getting juggled in this dopey strip now, anyway? I know there was a Lisa movie that got canned, then a John Darling movie, now the Cliff Anger movie and Starbucks sequels… like, whoa, Tombat went from hating Hollywood to it’s biggest fan. What gives? Probably the rise of super hero movies being every other damned movie at this point.

Anyhow, back to this stroll along Exposition Drive…