“So what’s the catch?” “I want to produce a documentary!” How is that a catch, exactly? I stopped wondering if Batiuk actually proofreads his own work a long, long time ago, since it’s incredibly clear he barely gives his work a passing thought anymore. Like, I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be “tried for THE murder of Valerie” and not “tried for murder of Valerie”, because nobody talks like that.
I would love to see Cindy’s job description. I think he saw her sitting in front of a camera once, but since then she’s basically just made documentaries and done whatever she feels like for her job, somehow. I mean, I know Batiuk gets paid for doing whatever crap he feels like, but most people don’t.
One of my least favorite things about Batiuk’s writing (I feel like I type that on a weekly basis) is his “funny” names. Butter isn’t in quotes, so I’m guessing it’s not a nickname, and some guy born in the late 1800s was actually named Butter by his parents.
Category: Son of Stuck Funky
This Comic is All Catch
It took me a little while to realize that’s supposed to be Cindy, what with the prominent bags under her eyes and the abrupt change in hair color, much grayer than it used to be. I wonder if the artist realized that Cindy and Jess, visually, were both basically just “hot young blonde” and realized Cindy needed to look older for some reason.
What is Jess even doing in Hollywood anymore? Is she still working on the stupid documentary about her dad? I think if she missed her family so much, she could do the work back in Ohio, since apparently all it consists of is sitting in front of soundboard and computer monitors with no mouse or keyboard in sight next to a Buddy Blog “journalist” for some reason.
And why does Jess think there’s some catch? The people in this comic fly back and forth between Ohio and California at the drop of a hat.
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 