Mister-E Man

Link to today’s strip.

So, based on his parking spot, it looks like Mason went ahead and legally changed his name.   I guess that nagged at Tom Batiuk from the beginning (as most trivia seems to nag at him) as he realized that “Jarre” looks a lot more natural than “Jarr,” as well as a lot less stupid.  The name “Mason Jarre” is plenty stupid on its own, no need to help it along with dumb spelling.

That’s literally all I’ve got for this strip today.   The “Screw Bull Over But Good” arc has really drained my ability to make anything out of this crap.  If it’s all going to be rewards for Les, vindictiveness for the regulars, and bland filler for the rest, it’s really hard to look for anything when the hated-loved ones aren’t in the strip.  We all know an arc with Jarre is going to be filler. We also know there aren’t going to be any “sparks” on set–even the mishap mentioned by Mason is something we weren’t allowed to see (in typical fashion).  It’s a lot easier to draw people standing around and talking than it is to show something interesting happening.  Not, of course, that there’s ever anything interesting happening in this strip.

By the way, I think I’ve figured out why the shooting schedule is so haphazard for the “Starbuck Jones” thing.  They’re not shooting a movie.  They’re shooting a television series, despite what Tom Batiuk tells you.  (You know you can’t trust him to be honest with you.)

Probably a “SyFy Original Series” given the quality level.  Though I think the SyFy channel would balk at “Starbuck Jones.”  If you’re at all familiar with what the SyFy channel coughs up, that’s not a good portent for Tom Batiuk’s beloved comic book.

My Mother Said, To Get Things Done, You’d Better Not Mess With Major Tom

Link to today’s strip.

Wow.

You see that, sportos?  If you start out in sports and athletic endeavors, your life will end in crushing failure after a career of setback after setback.  Any chance for happiness will be snatched back at the last moment, leaving your suffering ever more exquisite.  Serves you right for bullying certain people we could name.  Those people practice the only pure sport known to man, running!

You just wasted your entire life.  You could have done things differently–you could have followed the smart people, and become a big comic book fan.  Those people never ever fail at anything, and are always living fulfilling lives.  People smile and wave at them, and offer them rewarding jobs just because they’re comic book fans.  Just think, right now, Linda could be bringing you milk and cookies as you sat in the attic reading about the Flash.  But no, in the strip, you’ve never even mentioned whether you even like comic books.  Loser!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a naked expression of hatred from a creator to his creation as today’s strip.  This goes way beyond harsh into rabid, frothing vendetta-land.  This is a person deciding his child’s kindergarten painting wasn’t very good–so it needed to be shredded in front of said child’s eyes as a lesson.  This is “vindictive” with a capital “murder,” to the point where I honestly can’t believe what I’m seeing.

And it would have been so easy to turn it around, to make it something positive.  Get rid of Bull’s dialogue in panels 4 through 6, and replace it with Linda:  “Bull, it’s okay.  That’s the last act of your old life.  The life where you were always worried and angry and things kept going wrong.  That life’s over, and we’re starting your new life tonight.  The one where we face life together.  You and me.”  Then the lights go out, but there’s the hopeful tinge that Bull actually has something to look forward to.  But no, we get an ever descending chorus of bleakness, then the lights go out.  I’m surprised there wasn’t a “BANG!” sound effect in that last panel.

It seems weird, because it sure looked like Bull was being rehabilitated.   As HeyItsDave pointed out on the 24th, Bull has a long list of favors that he’s done for Les.  I mean, if you can’t get absolution doing favors for Les Moore, than your star really is about to shatter.   But there’s always been a rather blatant contempt for sports in the strip.  Yeah, Wedgeman and the other team members were stupidly evil, but that’s typical for a lot of comic strips.  The real “sports is nothing and requires no talent” bit came when a star quarterback emerged from smoking loser Jared.  No practice, no hard work, no talent, anyone could do it.

Today’s strip, though.  I mean, like a nine-car pileup, it’s hard to look away.  This strip really looks like a revenge fantasy that Tom Batiuk drew without ever intending to publish (a sort of voodoo-strip, if you will).  But then there was this deadline, see, and time got short–

Makes me wonder if he has Sunday revenge-strips all drawn, inked and colored about all of us.  Somehow, I would not be surprised.

The Dead Zone

Link to today’s strip.

I don’t advocate violence against anyone, but I think Bull here would be perfectly justified in punching Linda right in the face, as hard as he can.

Here, Bull has just failed at a final task his former coach assigned him, and all she can think to do is make a joke basically saying, “Well, Bull, we knew you’d fail from the beginning.  We just wanted to see it happen.”

That, my friends, is the very definition of mean-spirited.  The only way this could work would be if Bull was in on it–“You knew I’d do that, didn’t you?”  Easily done:

Just add a half-lidded smirk and the venom is drained out of it.

However, this also illustrates a point made by our very own Paul Jones on the 29th.  If I may quote:

His metier is really the gag a day strip that has no consequences to its jokes but he doesn’t realize it.

In a nutshell and on target.  That is the major failing of this strip–Tom Batiuk is trying to tell long-form stories here, but he is still in the mindset of the gag-a-day strip, where everything must be status quo ante after the day’s last panel.  The two forms really don’t mix well at all.  It’s why medical and psychological conditions have no real consequences, and why–in this instance–someone can make a cruel joke about a character’s failure and we’re all supposed to brush it off.   As Scarlett O’Hara might have said (were she to find herself in a mediocre comic strip), “Tomorrow is another gag.”

As I’ve said before, I think the worst thing that ever happened to Tom Batiuk was being nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.  We’ll never know the reasoning behind that nomination, but it basically said to Tom Batiuk, “Yes, the long-form dramatic comic strip is what you should be doing.  You should never go back to gag-a-day.  You are on the right path.”  And all the evidence that he is not on the right path gets swept aside in the waves of an ego-storm.  Criticism that might make him take a second look is overshadowed by the words “Pulitzer nominee.”

The thing is, of all the long-form stories that he’s told, none of them have been told well.  They’re not interesting–or if they start out that way, they are quickly mediocre’d until they stop that.  They’re not insightful or poignant or heart-warming or anything at all.  They just take up space.

Something I’m guessing Bull will stop doing shortly.

Shut Up, Donny

Link to today’s trip.

“Flag on the field.  How did it get there?” 

Well, you knew this was coming, right?  Given the choice between a sentimental gesture and a comedic pratfall, which one would he go with?  Well, there really wasn’t a choice, was there–sentiment only rears its head when Les Moore is involved, and he’s nowhere in sight (thank goodness).  Too bad the pratfall lacks the “comedic” bit.  In all seriousness, though, how utterly uncoordinated does Bull have to be to trip by stepping on a tiny banner?  Oh, I get the symbolism–Big Walnut Tech has once again prevented Bull from scoring–but couldn’t it be done in a subtler way?

“Touch a pennant.  Things happen.  A coach becomes a buffoon.”

As you know, there was a similar moment in the Coen Brothers film “The Big Lebowski.”   I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t seen the film, but there it was funny, appalling, in character, and worked.  Here, it is none of those things, and it doesn’t work.  It just seems like another kick from Tom Batiuk against his old high school nemesis.   The one task that Bull promised Coach Stropp he would do, and he fails at it.  Hardy har har.

“Bull Bushka, noted coach.  Now clown.  Stumble.  Stumble, just to be stumbling.”

Again, the whole premise just seems stupid.  The idea that Coach Stropp would want his remains treated in such a cavalier way, the idea that the school apparently knows nothing of his arrangement with Bull…I mean, surely when Stropp died, the school would have assembled to watch Bull amble toward the goal line, as a gesture of respect toward his career?  No?  There’s just an urn in the locker room with no identification, no one other than Bull knows how it got there (or even that it is there), and the school is perfectly okay with all of this.   (The idea that anyone would want their mortal remains placed in the high school shows just how much said high school has shaped Tom Batiuk’s thinking.)

“Nothing bothers some people, not even funeral urns in the locker room.”

The strangest thing is this:  Everyone, even Coach Stropp, is fine with the idea that Coach Stropp will be honored by the school when Bull retires, and not one moment before.

I keep re-reading the last sentence I just typed, hoping I’ll glean some insight, but it just keeps getting dumber and dumber.

“Bull Bushka.  Caught in the wheels of cartooning.”

Remind Me of My Failures, Bull, For Eternity

Link to today’s strip.

It’s hard to tell because of Tom Batiuk’s typically tin-earred dialogue, but it sounds to me as if Coach Stropp told Bull, “Look, if you can’t get into the end zone while I’m coaching you, can you at least carry my ashes across the goal line, so I can have some sense of what if feels like?  By the way, ‘ashes’ implies that I am dead and cremated, so it’s nothing you have to do today.”

I think the real focus of Mr. Batiuk’s energy is in panel two.  Bull pushes the switch, there’s a satisfying “THUNK” sound, and Linda looks pleased that Bull was able to accomplish something on his own.  The reader can see exactly what happened without it being spelled out.  The transition between panel one’s silhouette and panel two’s illumination is handled well, with the characters in the same position from the same angle.  This tells me that when he cares, Tom Batiuk can draw something that works.  Too bad he doesn’t care more often.