Category: Son of Stuck Funky

Sagging Interest

Click here to meet Pookie, tied with Buddy for best FW character

What is this office they’re waiting in, where they for some reason have a poster of one of Mason’s most embarrassing movies hanging on the wall? If they have this poster up then it really, really doesn’t seem like Mason should be sitting around waiting for Mr. Silver to get off the phone.

I spent about five minutes looking up SAG health insurance requirements, because I found that way more interesting than this strip. From what I can tell, you either have to make a certain amount of money a year or work a certain number of days per year to maintain your eligibility. The amount of money you have to make is apparently $33,000 a year, which, if Mason headlined a movie but made less than $33,000 is pretty awful.

I also think it’s pretty awful that Les had no idea Mason was in this movie, even though he’s in business with Mason. But it’s par for the course of Les being all around awful.

They’re Jewish, Get It?

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You know, last week after Batiuk went out of his way to make sure you knew the guys pulling the strings in Hollywood were Jewish, I wondered why Batiuk didn’t just have Bernie’s dad be an executive. And it sure looks like that’s where things are headed. Although it’s possible Batiuk just forgot Silver was Bernie’s last name. Someone last week stated that Batiuk clearly isn’t a racist. Maybe not, but the macaque strip and now two straight weeks of “Jews run Hollywood” don’t help things.  I am very, very grateful Les never did take Cayla to China.
This might possibly be the least warranted “smug Les face” I can remember seeing. What is he so smug about? The fact that Mason has the gumption to ask for a cucumber sandwich? Baituk can’t even keep his own writing coherent. As was already pointed out, I really don’t think someone who seems to be set up as the equivalent of Chris Pratt or Tom Cruise would just sit quietly in a waiting room until someone gets around to see him, and I really don’t think Les should be shocked that Mason would ask for a sandwich.
This does carry on the long Batiuk tradition of people being smug jerks to people who’ve literally done them nothing wrong and are just doing their jobs, though.

All Strung Out on Heroine

If nothing else, today’s strip sheds a little light on why Mason struck out with those guys at Mixmaster: it was their “practice pitch.” Because there are no other ways to rehearse and refine an important presentation that don’t involve humiliating yourself and wasting other people’s time. Mason compounds his folly by daring to smirk at the mention of St. Lisa, and draws a withering rebuke from Les. A cancer superhero?  How dare you, sir! What twisted mind would ever even conceive of such a thing?

 March 4, 2007:

July 1, 2007:

Dos de Mayo

This week has been has consisted of nothing but these two poorly drawn, hipster jerkoffs disrespecting Les and his cancer saga. Les and Mason meekly just sit there and take it, and in the process demonstrate that the Clone Brothers are absolutely correct that nobody needs this kind of “entertainment,” especially right now. Way to “pitch,” fellas. Tom Batiuk and the formerly capable, now indifferent draughtsman Chuck Ayers somehow get paid for dragging this crap out, but I do not…I’ve spent all the disdain I can muster for this horrible week of strips. Hopefully Sunday will be a one-off that will be worth getting into a froth about. In the meantime, dear readers, please have at it. Thank you for reading and commenting and for sharing the pain.

Diss Master

Again: why is this meeting even taking place? Aaron and Marc, the Clone Brothers, knew that Mason wanted to make “a depressing film about a woman dying of cancer,” yet saw fit to waste their time and their sparkling water in order to tell Les to his face that this project was a no go. This whole sequence harkens back to that time that Les and Susan Smith had to face a bunch of angry Westview parents over Susan’s choice of Wit for the school play: