That was fast. Dick Tracy is indeed in the strip, but today he’s only playing a background role as BanTom has decided to focus on two totally forgotten stupid one-off characters from last year’s idiotic Starbuck Jones arc instead. So typically self-indulgent. I can’t believe he’s actually making this DT crossover arc all about a f*cking comic book auction, I mean talk about a lack of imagination.
Category: Son of Stuck Funky
Grand Theft Humor
Special thanks to TFH and the SoSF staff for everything they do!!
BanTom suddenly abandoning a premise he spent weeks setting up is certainly nothing new in the Funkyverse, he does it all the time. It’s called “writing”. It’s also annoying. But I forgot all about Mason Whatshisface as soon as I tried to decipher today’s brain-damagingly bizarre strip. The Jumbler? Finley’s Pharmacy? Holly pretending to be surprised by the sight of those two morons doing everything but working? What the f*ck?
Then I heard from the crack SoSF research team who informed me that within that massive wall of expository jibber-jabber lurk a few Dick Tracy references, which means that the long-rumored and much-dreaded Dick Tracy super mega crossover arc may be upon us…RIGHT NOW! For those of you not familiar with pop culture fads of the 1940s, Dick Tracy is a comic strip detective of some kind who regularly does battle with comically-named foes like The Jumbler (no doubt named for his propensity toward never properly organizing his comic books). I’m hoping this arc somehow involves Westview’s super-villain Dick Face, the man who paralyzes his foes with rage and disgust. “Watch out for the park bench, Mr. Tracy, it’s a trap!!”.
And once again Holly comes across as a total imbecile. I mean obviously they’re going to a police auction to bid on a huge lot of vintage comic books because of course they are. Duh. They’re not eating pizza or loitering around in that creepy store, so where else would they be going? To the library? The bank? To buy new clothes or fitness equipment? Home to their wives and families? Not bloody likely.
Westview maps, not like the Google ones
If there is a teacher at Westview High less competent than Les Moore, it’s Jim Kablichnick, the ostensible teacher of science, as today’s strip aptly demonstrates. And, argh! Is this the intro to the annual “school levy fails” arc? Have we had that yet this cycle (I can’t be arsed to check)? Let me tell you—I’m a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, but I’d vote against this band of nincompoops getting any more tax money!
“[T]he map” in Jim’s classroom “was so old,” he tells Linda, who fails to reply, “How old was it?”
“[T]he continents, which are major land masses surrounded by water, too large to be considered mere islands—the continents, I say—the continent of South America and the continent of Africa—those continents were still conjoined, united, and fitted together in some sort of ‘super’ continent, which would be a nice topic for a comic book,” Jim does not quite say, although Bantom cannot prevent himself from composing Jim’s speech in a loquacious manner, because—I don’t know—he’s never heard of The Elements of Style’s admonition to “omit needless words.” Also, Jim thinks his colleagues are ignoramuses who don’t know what South America and Africa are.
This might have been a mildly amusing joke if not for two flaws.
- The punchline should have read like one of these
- And the map was so old that Africa and South America were still joined together.
- And the map was so old, it only showed Pangaea.
- And the map was so old, it had “here be dragons” instead of Florida.
- And the map was so old, it had Amerigo Vespucci’s autograph.
- This image of a smartphone in Les’s delicate hands, from yesterday’s strip:
If only there were some way to see up-to-date maps in 2015! If only!
Strips like this drive me to drink, and for that, and that only, thank you, Tom Batiuk!
Here endeth my current stint as your guest snarker. Many thanks to TFH! The gloriously acid-tongued Epicus Doomus takes over tomorrow.
Something smirking this way comes
Upon first seeing today’s strip, I was going to mock Les for yelling his secret across the crowded dining room at Montoni’s. Then I remembered, this is Montoni’s; no one else is there.
And then I noticed them.
Les knows nothink! Nothink!
In today’s strip, Les admits that he’s an intellectual cipher. And Les is the author avatar, so… the prosecution rests.
Son of Stuck Funky 