I Stand in Line

Today’s strip:

August 21, 2018:

As we saw in the previous Skyler arc, Chuck Ayers (as with Batiuk when he was drawing this strip) appears to be simply incapable of drawing cute, appealing children (Burchett wasn’t good at it either). But there is no cartoonist better at depicting decrepit senior citizens than the man who inked Crankshaft for 30 years! Just look at the array of codgers (including the cartoonist himself, with cap, classes, and grey beard) in today’s strip, and in the very similar one-paneler from less than a year ago. Looks like Darin’s chosen to visit another of Cleveland’s 20 or so P.O.’s, but at least he’s remembered to wear his light blue “Going to the post office” shirt.

Like I Care

Having satisfied her simian sexual appetites, as well as getting in a “bonding moment” with her child, Jessica has hastened back to L.A.—the world must not be made to wait any longer for that very important Butter Brinkel documentary! She’s probably been back in town barely long enough to unpack her suitcase; long enough to compel Darin to show his “caring” by sending her a package. Rather, “one of” his packages, which suggests this is a thing with him. Batiuk persists in depicting Darin and Jessica as these two starry eyed, young sweethearts, tragically kept apart by their respective, oh-so-important careers.

His Motto’s Always Been “When It’s Right, It’s Right.”

Link To Today’s Thing

You know, this whole “young lovebirds just starting out” arc would have made more sense if a) Boy Lisa and Jessica were fifteen years younger and, you know, young lovebirds just starting out and b) Jessica had moved back to Ohio with Boy Lisa THEN went out to California to film the Buckner Brigatoni documentary. BatGak STILL never bothered to explain what Jessica was doing out there, but at this point it doesn’t really matter anyway. They’ll be perpetually “getting their burgeoning careers on track” for the rest of FW’s run, whether that’s three years or three hundred (don’t put it past him). The truly scary part is that the Bucket Briquette arc HASN’T EVEN STARTED YET which means he’ll be flogging the Boy Lisa & Jess thing for months, if not years. Sigh.

And on that note allow me to step aside and turn the microphone over to TFH, our SoSF king of kings!

Like A Ring-Tailed Lemur On A Swedish Meatball

Link To Today’s Thing

OK, now this mess is reading like a really shitty G-rated “Married With Children” knock-off type thing, the only thing missing is canned laughter and audience hooting. After a week of zany gags about children’s behinds, hot sex, Skyler’s aberrant attention-seeking behavior and potty jokes, it’s time for some sitcom-style gender role reversal. Boy Lisa expresses his feelings and his desire to “just talk” to his BFF Pete while the gals get together to exchange crude sexually suggestive similes involving primates and food. See, it’s funny because MEN are typically the over-sexed slobs and…ah, you know. At least Jessica finally got to bond with someone, although unfortunately for little baby Skyler it wasn’t him.

Check out that last word balloon and note the big empty space between “a” and “monkey”. My “inside sources” tell me it was edited. The original dialog was “…on me like Les Moore turning a tragedy into a masterpiece…”Lisa’s Trilogy”, available wherever books are sold!” but Comics Kingdom thought it was a little too blatant, so they went with his second choice, “monkey on a cupcake” instead. “Funky on a cupcake” would have been funnier.

Your Aim Will Help

Link To Today’s Strip

Not only does this one have absolutely nothing to do with anything that came before it in this arc, it also creates some really disgusting mental imagery I really could have done without. What kind of person would visit their spouse’s job and say something like this? I think he tries to aim for “quirky and adorable” with Jessica but honestly, she seems more troubled and deranged than anything else, at least to me.

Weren’t Ann and Skyler involved in this arc for a while there? Where’d they go? Is Jessica really suggesting that without a woman around her husband, Pete and that weirdo Chester would wantonly urinate all over the bathroom floor? Are we to believe that no one cleans the AK building? Who spends time worrying about the restrooms at their significant other’s job? If this kind of thing is indicative of what BatHack has left in his already bone-dry tank, he should consider writing the rest of FW’s run now, before it devolves even more, if that’s even possible.