The House That Jones Built

Link to today’s strip.

Greetings, folks, BChasm here back behind the wheel of this eternally stalling vehicle.  Many thanks to Comic Book Harriet for an excellent hosting stint.  Trust me, the headaches go away after a while!

So, what do we have here?  I’m honestly dying from boredom just looking at this one.  I do like the drawing of the house and the environs in panel one–it’s simple and slapdash but it’s nice, including the squiggle birds and the hinted-at ocean.  A decent looking house right on the beach–Starbuck Jones has been very good to Mason.  And it’s nice of Les to change from the yellow shirt he was wearing yesterday to a blue version of the same thing.   I suppose he did that on the ride over, and thank you to Tom Batiuk for not showing that, and also not showing Mason saying, “Wow, Les, you’re really ripped.  I could get you into the movies easily, as a sensitive and caring guy who ends up with the girl in the end!”  And also not showing Les being all humble and yet unable to say No.  So that’s three good things Tom Batiuk did in just this one episode!

Anyway, I get that Les and Mason are pals due to suffering through the abortive “Lust for Lisa” project, but Cayla and Cindy don’t really seem like the type to pal around.   Have they ever actually met?

As for the dialogue, ugh.  Dullard told Mason that he and Les were up for an award.  Cindy took that as a way to catch up on Ohio.  Because, as I think the Comics Curmudgeon pointed out, phones can never be used in the Funkyverse.   And everything always happens in Ohio…the place Mason wanted to retire to, if I remember correctly.  Yeah, no one uses phones, except Les, just yesterday to text Cindy.  So he has her number stored in his phone.  And…

This strip is like a shelf full of boxes that all get knocked to the floor, contents scattered everywhere.  And the person assigned to pick everything up just doesn’t care where things are supposed to go.

Still, I think the point of this episode is to present something so dull and uninteresting that no one can really criticize it.  If so, mission accomplished.

A Big Pick-Me-Up.

Link to Today’s Comic.

Once again stayed up late waiting for Sunday’s strip to drop. Les and Cayla are in LA, getting picked up by the world’s worst Uber. Mason has always been portrayed as a dingbat. I would not feel safe with him behind the wheel of a Hummer/Hearse Hybrid during LA rush hour.

It seems that ‘Comic-Con’ this year was completely summed up in one panel of nerdery last Sunday. The awards show might as well have been a poorly attended wedding reception for all the excitement and industry flavor we got.

I’m pretty flabbergasted by it, really. We did get plenty of tone deaf ‘nerdy’ humor last year, and the year of the great Holly Winkerbean Starbuck Hunt. But the idea that Batiuk would have nothing more to say during a Comic Con, that he’s both out of new ideas and not interested in recycling his old ones, it’s not like him. It’s almost worrying. Lack of interest in activities that you once enjoyed is a classic hallmark of depression. Can someone check on him?

Well it has certainly been an interesting couple weeks at the helm. I interpret this awards quickie as TommyBats realizing that while the IRL ‘Lisa’s Story’ was nominated for a Pulitzer, the ‘in-universe’ book has never been similarly rewarded. The Eisner nomination, but not win, is a way of giving his opus similar accolades both within his world and without.

Beckoning Chasm is up tomorrow, to see us through the sights of LA. If Cayla is impressed with Union Station, wait till she sees the Scientology Building.

Pity Party for Two.

Link to Today’s Comic.

It seems that Darin and Jess weren’t in yesterday’s strip because Darin stomped out in a huff after not getting his coveted award. After all, and Eisner has been the lifelong dream of this business major who only fell into storyboarding after a friend suggested it offhand.

Tommy Bats seems hesitant to put this bitterness in the mouth of Les, sainted as he is by association. He’s lately split his author avatar in two. The younger Darin can be the raw id of jealousy, anger, and pride. Les is the older and ‘wiser’ superego so his response to defeat is depression, self-pity, and fatalism.

The Han Solo joke is so throwaway, the ghost of a reminder this was supposed to be Batiuk’s Comic-Con tie in strip for the year.

Sloppy Second Place.

Link to Today’s Comic.

So Tom at least realized that is would be beyond crass to have ‘Lisa’s Story’ WIN the award. We’ve learned something about the lines he will and wont cross.

But when you thought the plotline couldn’t get any weirder or more half-assed, we don’t get to see the announcing of the award, or the immediate reaction. We jump from before the award being announced to some time following later.

I would hate to be Tom’s wife, the man has trouble experiencing a climax. Everything is foreplay to him, followed by a blackout and then an awkward denouement. Since his massive Atomic Komix startup saga tapered off even his foreplay has been perfunctory. Perhaps we are entering the era of endless quickies, shorter and shorter storylines eventually turning the strip back into the one shot comic it once was.

Panel One: Cayla hands her ‘Honey’ divorce papers.
Panel Two: Les drinks while being insulted by an imaginary cat.
Panel Three: Les asks out an attractive woman at a book fair.

Whistling Dicksie

Link to Today’s Comic.

Well Darin and Jess are already drunk, and are hanging all over each other like two kids necking at the back of the old Valentine Theatre. Jess has lost a finger. In fact all the hands are extra hideous today. And Cayla is missing a neck. What a treat!

Les has absolutely no grounds to be ashamed of a friend making a scene, but it’s nice to see him miserable anyway.

Something I had never really noticed until I was examining the last panel is how the Funkyverse house art style generally doesn’t include lip tint. Normally it doesn’t stand out. But Jess today, with fully detailed lips, really should have them colored nice and pink or red, as would befit a lady at an awards show. instead she has a terrifying flesh colored pucker on her face, like she has an asshole for a mouth.

Cayla has an asshole for a mouth too. But his name is Les.