Okay, so the absurdity continues today. The storytelling absurdity, not the whimsy of the story itself or anything. Cliff literally lived through something straight out of the Planet of the Apes, which a chimpanzee wielding a weapon at him and speaking, and never told anyone until now? I don’t care if he was literally spying for the KGB, this is by far the most interesting part of his life. Or anyone’s life in this strip. Forget Lisa and John Darling, Les needs to write about Zanzibar.
Oh, and apparently Butter slept with a she-chimp and fathered a half-man, half chimp, which explains why Zanzibar was so talented, and had a burning desire to kill humans.
The Sound of Simians
I feel like the only part of the movie-making process Batiuk has actually shown is reading scripts. Because that’s all there is to it, I guess. The genius writers make the scripts and talk about bent nails to the actors, who just sit around reading the script until they film. I would’ve much preferred him to be reading Das Kapital or writing a letter to Trotsky or something.
Oh, and I guess past Cliff is about to get shot with a ray gun by a monkey. Sure it’ll mess up the time stream, but I think it’s worth it.
Zanzibarf
Tom Batiuk is a 14 year old. Because he clearly seems to think smoking and drinking makes you a badass, which I’m pretty sure that stopped being a thing in high school. A literal 14 year old boy writing this strip would explain why it’s so fixated on comics and has such a creepy portrayal of the female characters. Also, teaching an animal to smoke and drink isn’t awesome, it’s abuse.
Oh, and Cliff absolutely has the hots for Zanzibar in the last panel. Note the leer and the fact that his right hand is clearly under the table.
You Were A Crappy Friend, Cliff
Again-this didn’t come up in the previous documentary about Cliff Anger? The fact that he literally lived with a monkey? This is honestly the most interesting thing about him. And was this before or after he took off on the tramp steamer? Did the monkey live with him in his crappy little apartment? Did Zanzibar testify before Congress on his behalf? Is the fact that Cliff lived with a convicted murderer’s pet monkey maybe contribute to his being branded a communist, or living as a bachelor for sixty years?
Also, how in the world was there “no way of telling when Butter would be back, if ever”? Does Cliff/Batiuk not know that people are sentenced to jail for specific lengths of time, and not like “whenever Williams/Wilson Bellows Inkpot feels like letting you out”, or whatever is supposed to be going on here? It says a lot that Batiuk can botch a storyline with an actress being murdered and a monkey so incredibly badly.
And is it me, or does Cliff look disturbingly like Frankie in the last panel? I’m sure it’s just supposed to be a “cool” expression but it always comes off way more creepy to me.
Monday, July 15
Thanks for having me back. I’m always nervous that I’m going to get stuck with weeks of Dinkle typing in silence when it’s my turn here, so I guess this is better.
I’ve got two issues with today’s strip. I would really, really like to know why Hammett thought Brinkle was covering up for someone else. It’s basically the core of this whole lame “mystery”. Somehow a jury found enough evidence to convict him, but Hammett found evidence that he didn’t do it? Gosh, that sounds almost interesting.
It’s also very funny to me how this never came up once in the documentary Cindy already did on Cliff. It’s like if you did a documentary on some random old football player, and then a year later he just casually mentioned how he had proof that O.J. Simpson was guilty and never mentioned it before.
Son of Stuck Funky 
