Stairs Going Nowhere.

Comic Book Harriet here! And judging by this strip, I’m a very appropriate commentator for the coming week. I want to give kudos to poor Billy for last week’s run. He was dealt a terrible set of strips, and he was able to provide valuable context into just how freakin’ long Batiuk has been using ‘Dinkle Types His Stupid Book’ as a lazy repository for all bad band puns.

I’m sure that Tommy Boy thinks that he’s cleverly building up suspense here. Ooooooh he’s not letting us see the person who is so excited to be finding the Komix Korner for the first time! Who could it be? What drama will it lead to? Is it the long lost Afghani parents of Becky the One-Armed-Wonder and Dead Skunk Hair’s adopted step-daughter Rana? Who have just tracked the..bwahahahah… I can’t even finish that without laughing. Because Rana was dropped down the memory hole YEARS ago!

We do have to wonder why anyone ever, in the history of time, would have gone on an interet mission looking for Komix Korner.

Debt collectors.

It’s gotta be debt collectors.

In A Mirror, Glumly

Is TB is trying to tell us something in today’s strip? “I guess it’s OK to keep going” has been the unofficial motto of this strip ever since he realized that 50 was only 15 more than 35, hasn’t it?

Whether TB had a bout of self-awareness or not, this strip is a confession of poor effort. The parts are all there? Sure, we’ll go along with that. Pity they were never any good, though.

That’s it for the stint of this humble garden lizard. Comic Book Harriet takes over tomorrow, and we shall all see whether the good ship Funky stays in the doldrums of Dinkle or finds some newfound rocks upon which to run aground.

Shudderday, February 10

Today’s strip was not available for preview and I cannot say I am disappointed.

Once it is available, though, we can see how it adds to the varied life of Claude Barlow.

From childhood…
FW11-9-81
To death…
FW11-13-81
To possible resurrection…
FW1-8-81
To writing operas based on second-tier golden age cartoon characters created after his 17th century death…
FW5-14-82
To composing medleys of the work of actually talented people who wrote music after his 17th century death…
FW5-14-82

Get Down Tonight

Take a gander at today’s strip. Truly fowl, it swan of the worst yet. Remarkably, it manages to come across more dated than the similarly-themed 43 year-old strip seen below:

1975LiviniaLesPaper

Dinkle can’t write despite making an honest(ly awful) effort, Les couldn’t-can’t-won’t write unless it is about someone who died a decade prior, the late Livinia wouldn’t write… I’m starting to see a pattern here.

Argh-peggio

Claude Barlow’s “tectonic scale” could probably be applied to today’s strip, and this week in general, which feels like it has been going on for eons.

What really throws me in these Dinkle-Barlow strips is that they come across simply as vehicles to deliver TB’s puns. That concept struggles when Dinkle is a character who otherwise isn’t at all disposed to being a mirthful pun-maker. It struggles further when Barlow, as an unseen character, seems to slide from being an unwitting pun set up to an unwitting pun-maker to a “humorously” terrible composer just to suit Dinkle’s TB’s mood. I get that the Barlow shtick was supposed to add to Dinkle’s over-the-top nature, and that kid of worked back in Acts I and II when he was an over-the-top character. Now, though, he’s a character that used to be over-the-top, like a guy who still wants his nickname to be “Animal” even though the only time he really got crazy was at a couple of parties in college. Now, this is just listless and out of whatever character Dinkle has remaining.