The Shape of Things to Come

Link to today’s strip.

Can’t think of much to say about this one, except I’m sure the “book tour” will be excruciating.  I don’t know what Les means about a physical trainer helping him to look less old than he is–he needs a beautician (or, even better, a mortician) for that.   I wonder if the original word was not “older” but “fatter”?  That makes more sense, though it also implies Les might be flawed, and we just can’t have that.  Les will grow older, as everything does, but he is not in bad physical shape.   Certainly not like some people we could mention.

The stupid non-punchline is made worse by Dullard’s reaction–

Back when I watched a lot of anime, that face meant over-the-top enjoyment, as if a person got a surprise birthday party, or a piece of cake, or saw a really dreamy boy, or something along those lines.  If Dullard is so wrought by Les’ idiot statements, then he is even more worthless than I thought possible.

Of course, it could be that I’m looking at this the wrong way, and that Dullard has been affected by Les in the same way that the takers of dimethyltryptamine-19 from Banshee Chapter were affected:

If so, that would be the most interesting development this strip has had in decades…which of course, takes it right off the table.  Darn it!

The Words Get In The Way

Link to today’s strip.

(Sorry I’m late!  Things…happened…)

Panels one and two are the funniest things I’ve seen in this strip for a long time.  “This is the cover for ‘Prelude'” says Dullard, handing Les an image that’s got PRELUDE written on it in huge letters.  Does Dullard have the same contempt for Les that the rest of us have?  Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all!

Just kidding.  Dullard is thoroughly hateable, and if he likes to insult Les to his face, that’s not mitigating enough.

Normally, the titles and such wouldn’t be done by the artist, but by a typographer–so, if this was normal, Dullard might have to explain which cover went with which book.  But as you can see, Tom Batiuk didn’t even bother to change the author name to “Les Moore,” so this is exactly what it looks like–an advertisement.  Remember that $80 behemoth that Fearless Leader found?  Gotta get the word out!

I still find it hard to believe that anyone could read 862 pages of Les Moore.  That sounds like an elaborate suicide attempt, albeit much more painful than the traditional ones.

Door-To-Door Dullard

Link to today’s strip.

The problems of working a year in advance are many, but this instance sets up a lovely contrast with reality.  I’m sure you can all see the headline on “Variety” there, trumpeting the Starbuck Jones movie’s success.   Well, IMDB has a headline that’s probably nearer the mark:

I still find it odd that there’s no room in Funky Winkerbean for anyone’s success but Les Moore…that we’re told of the movie’s success by an off-hand headline that you kind of figure Tom Batiuk didn’t want to put in at all.   I wonder if the new artist said, “Damn it, I spent a couple of hours drawing all that Starbuck Jones crap, so it better be a hit film!”

Oh, and speaking of a pile of festering garbage, there he is, smirking away!  He doesn’t get a line today, but we all know that won’t last.

I have to admit, I like the level of detail on the doorframe.  It’s meaningless and adds clutter to the image, but damn if someone didn’t decide that you just can’t have a doorframe without all the holes for the locks and such.  Pity none of those locks actually work, as it didn’t keep Dullard from wandering right in, but look at it this way:  they also wouldn’t keep an insane murderer out, either.

Hint, hint.

Can the Living Marry the Dead?

Link to today’s strip.

Apologies first off–I don’t know how Fearless Leader embeds these sideways things into normalcy, so you’ll have to suffer with strained necks for the nonce.  Unless I reach beyond myself, and give it a try–

–hey, that worked!  I think!

And check out that cast.  Isaac The Robot (defaming Dr. Asimov’s memory), Moon Mile Meek (or whatever that bowel movement was named), the Space Cadets, the Black Ghost, the Amazing Mister Sp0nge and the (*Cough* undead) Absorbing Junior, and the latest ass-pull, the Blue Astra.  I’d love to see a follow-up strip showing what gifts they brought (“a gift certificate for $10 at Best Buy?  Who the hell–“) but follow-ups are definitely not this strip’s strong suit.

–Case in point.  So, the Starbuck Jones movie world premier has come and gone, and we are no wiser as to how it fell on the world.  Was it a hit?  Did people enjoy it?  Were the fanboys irate over how it changed canon?   Did it rescue the Valentine Theater from foreclosure, and did it spring the careers of Mason, Marianne, Cindy, Cliff, Vera, Pete and Dullard into the stratosphere?  Did it circle the drain on the way through the toilet?   Is Cable Movie Entertainment now on the level of Marvel Studios, or are they instead competing with The Asylum for most horrible crap ever?

As the Residents once sang on their album Not Available, these are “Never Known Questions.”   Because the only answer here is another question, “Who cares?”  And the answer to that is, “Not Tom Batiuk.”

My theory on this is actually quite simple, and obvious once you hear it.   The success or failure of the Starbuck Jones movie was something that–had nothing to do with Les Moore.

Think on that for a moment.  Has this strip ever featured a creative, successful idea that didn’t involve Les Moore?  I certainly can’t think of any.  For the most part, it’s been “I need help, oh thank you for helping, [blink] oh it’s the next day and everything worked.”  (I’m thinking of Pete Movement and his battles with the…sigh…Lord of the Late.)

The message of the strip has been pretty constant in Act III–Les Moore is the only person who can be allowed a creative success in the world.  Everyone else succeeds only because they betrayed their ideals and settled for hackery.   No one else has lost a wife…no one else wrote a best-selling book detailing how he suffered when losing his wife…no one else wrote about how he just damn kept on, after losing his wife…and found a woman willing to be doormat.  That last bit is a little troubling, but, you know…Les Moore was once married to a woman, who…died.

It makes me fear what comes next week.

 

Scenes from a Mirage

Link to today’s strip.

Now, I want an honest counting of hands, here.  How many of you thought we’d see something/anything of the Starbuck Jones movie during this, the arc in which the long gestating film finally had its premier?  Think of all the things riding on this film’s success–not just careers for Mason Jarre, Pete Robots, Darrin Undesireable and Cliff Anger, but the culmination of desire for a million fan-boys, the affirmation of belief for thousands of cellar-dwellars, and the salvation of the Valentine Theater (and a poorly-performing comic strip associated with same).   Surely such an expanse would provide proof of its benevolent effect.  Right?

Don’t be ashamed; after all, this was something that was fed to us for several years now as the event of the decade, as the measure by which this strip would ensure its place in the pantheon.

So, hands?  Well, there’s one.  Two.  Oh…oh…oh, dear.  That’s far too many hands than I thought I would see.

In my host duties here, I have tried to focus on the content of the strip and NOT on Tom Batiuk, the person.  I’ve never met, and don’t know Tom Batiuk; from all reports, he’s a genuinely nice guy, open and friendly, and I try to keep that foremost when I write here.  And to be honest, I wish him well.

But I’m going to violate that rule here.  Because Tom Batiuk cannot tell a story.

He must know this–aside from Les Moore, the characters he truly cares about (Starbuck Jones and The Amazing Mister Sponge) have never had a single panel dedicated to showcasing their, cough, awesomeness.  Sure, we’ve had lots and lots of covers, but nothing in the way of story.   Story being the key to why a character makes an impression.  Comic book cover?  Anyone who ever read a comic book ever knows that comic book covers are designed to lie you into buying them.  So they don’t count.

It’s much, much easier to ease back down off that plane, and shift the focus to a bunch of has-beens getting married.  Everyone likes marriages, right?  And that’s way more, like, focused than some movie thing that’ll be, like, forgotten in two years.  But marriage, man, that’s like eternal!  Until the next reboot.  But I’ve heard Les Moore has a new book!  Gotta be worth it all, man, gotta be worth it all.

And, just to be that guy,  I’ll be damned if I look it up, but I’m pretty sure Mason made this exact same joke some months back.

To paraphrase Charlie Brown, I weep for the newspaper comic-strip fans.