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Weak Impact

What are the odds that Skyler still lives with his grandma, even after Jess comes back? I’d say very, very high. If Batiuk still put any effort into this strip, I’d see this resulting into another time jump when Old Lady Jess is berating Skyler about how she threw away a promising Hollywood career to stay home with him and his bum dad Darin who ended up running away to live at the Flash Museum with Pete.

I’m all for women (or men) choosing to spend more time with their families, even if it means career sacrifice, but I really don’t like how this is presented as kind of an either/or thing here. And she was apparently willing to spend years in Hollywood finishing up a single documentary about her dead dad, but not working for an actual Hollywood production.

And is it just me or does Darin look not quite human in the last panel?

Darin Blows

Ha. I just spent several minutes Googling what being an assistant cinematographer entails. It doesn’t seem to be a very common job title. The closest listing I could see was just someone posting looking for someone to assist the cinematographer by carrying heavy cases and cameras for them. Which I do think Jess is more qualified to do that than anything involving actual camera work. The actual cinematographer oversees all lighting and cameras for the entire film, so there’s no way Jess is even close to qualified for that.
I do think it’s pretty hilarious that Cindy recommended Jess for that job. Either Mason is doing the hiring, or Cindy just walked on to the set and told the producer to hire Jess, or maybe Buddy Blog is actually making the sequel themselves. None of those would surprise me.
This strip really is kind of amazing, though. Batiuk brings up a dilemma-will Jess take the job?-and resolves in a single panel. I can’t remember the last time he didn’t drag this kind of thing out for days.

Hot John Darling’s Daughter-on-Boy Lisa Action

Two panels of Jess and Darin making out. I don’t think we needed two panels of them making out in the entire history of this strip, let alone back to back on one day. And I really don’t like Batiuk making us thing about what Darin’s breath tastes like.
Tomorrow’s strip: Darin and Jess are undressing each other right in the middle of the concourse, and Darin says he’s glad he switched to his clean pair of Flash underwear.

Unsurprisingly Lame

So ends the epic saga of Butter and Zanzibar. Ha. This strip being what it is I’m sure we’ll have several more storylines about that stupid thing. The movie premieres at the Valentine, Butter and Zanzibar happen to still believe and drop by the theater, Cindy and Jess win Oscars, Butter and Zanzibar tell Cindy and Jess about another murder they committed so they can make a sequel documentary.
This is like the third or fourth time Jess/Darin have flown cross-country this year. And it’s just as boring now as ever. I’m used to Batiuk’s incredibly low standards for this strip, but there isn’t anything remotely surprising about this. I have a feeling we’re supposed to find this all touching, which I’d be shocked and disturbed if there were any Jess/Darin shippers out there.

I would seriously love tomorrow’s strip to be Darin saying he’s at work now and can’t pick Darin up, so maybe she should’ve called ahead of time.

Sunday, July 21

Link to today’s strip.

Okay, so apparently the documentary is done now. If last week really was the conclusion to the Butter storyline that’ll be pretty amazing.

I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen a coffee shop that served ice cream. And does anyone else feel like Batiuk has been pushing that Darin and Jessica are in love with each other a little too hard lately? I kind of feel like maybe he took the comments about Darin and Pete’s relationship and is trying to prove everyone wrong. “So what if Darin and Pete ran off to the Flash Museum together to buy dollies, look how horny Jess and Darin are for each other! And Pete has a girlfriend now!”