Category: Son of Stuck Funky

And Even Fewer Care, Cliff

Link to today’s strip

History lesson time…who knew? Anyhow, the entire SJ mythology veers wildly off-course today as the old serials we assumed were based upon the “Starbuck Jones” comic book series were actually written by Dashiell Hammett, a renowned  mystery writer and political activist from “back in the day” (guess which day, bet you’re not surprised). Few people knew this, as generations of obsessive SJ fanboys somehow completely overlooked the old SJ serial films because comic book fan communities rarely deal in the arcane or trivial and would have no interest at all in something like that.

Anyhow that’s a real swerve into left field completely out of nowhere, eh? Obviously none of this shameless, haphazard retconning makes even a little sense but hey, it’s his comic strip and if he wants to use it as some sort of half-assed platform to create magical boring fantasy worlds where his real-life interests and preferences get shoehorned into the narrative regardless of logic or continuity, that’s his business.

Briefly checking out the Dashiell Hammett page gives me an idea of where this is going…ugh. Cliff Anger…Political Prisoner? I guess it does beat band turkeys, though.

Those Four Dreaded Words

Link to today’s strip

No, not “I love you Spanky”….”it’s a long story”…(shudder). Long like two-week arc long or LONG, like this SJ movie mega arc that’s spawning all these spinoff arcs? I like how Cindy, the veteran journalist doing a documentary on an old movie star, is shocked to learn that her subject was in prison, as if it’s the first she’s hearing of it. I also love the little dig at her own work, like all true Westviewians she takes a perverse pleasure in knowing she’s churning out crap, like it’s OK because she’s in on the gag. And I think it’s safe to say that if you’re reading this you probably know the deal there.

Blathering Heights

Link to today’s strip

Huh? Cliff was in prison? What was he convicted of, impersonating an interesting comic strip character? Comic book theft? Counterfeiting pizzas? Violating the super-strict NYC lampshade statutes? And no one knew anything about this until right now? Well, that’s just fascinating and by “fascinating” I of course mean “duh”. I can’t wait to see where this latest twist takes us and of course by that I mean “please kill me now”.

So Cindy is only finding out about Cliff’s prison past right now? There’s no documentarian like a Westviewian documentarian, like no documentarian I know as a matter of fact. Once her crack team figures out The Google thing this project is really going to take off, mark my words. And correct me if I’m mistaken here but wasn’t Vera supposed to be “long lost” when they dredged her up to appear at Starbuck-Con? So she was long lost AND ardently following Anger’s life at the same time? Hey, it’s the Batiukverse…why the hell not?

A Peck Before Lying

Link to today’s strip

Wow, talk about a pathetic waste of time, even more so than the usual Sunday strip. Apparently TomBan had a bunch of extra “Ominously Smirking Frankie” drawings lying around that he felt he needed to re-purpose, or perhaps he once again assumes his readers will forget the plot unless he drives it home over and over again for days on end. Either way the hackery just leaps off the page as the “story” (as it were) continues its inexorable death spiral into nothingness. What a sad-sack-sorry display.

The Winters Of Our Non-Content

Link to today’s strip

That hair strand invading the word balloon in panel three is one of the single most enraging things I’ve ever seen. And Marianne’s peculiarly proportioned body probably says a lot about the artist responsible for drawing it, the less said there the better. The biggest question at this point is how long can Frankie continue to make that ominously sneering face? Is that his default expression now? Did he remember to lock up the Food Film truck before he left? And why did Mason and Marianne leave the front door open like that?  Mysteries abound.

The dialog today is really bottom of the barrel though. Hey, remember back before Marianne was a real character, back when she was still a mysterious home-wrecking vixen? Me either. Turns out she’s just an ordinary girl with a solid set of good old fashioned mid-central-Ohioian values who just happens to live in Hollywood with her adorable stereotypical mom, that’s all. As always, BatNom grinds everything down until there’s not a single edge of entertainment left, just a smooth flat bland surface full of contrived dialog and stupid smirks.