Double Shot of My Batty’s Love

I suppose we can’t blame Tom Batiuk for taking Fathers Day off and yielding the floor to a “real” comic artist. But we’re left with so many unanswered questions.

Mason Jarr casually  informs Cliff, on-set and in costume, that they are concurrently “shooting” Starbuck Jones and its sequel? Did Cliff not read and sign a contract? Or is he so delighted to have been rescued from obscurity that anything is fine with him? “I can’t believe they’re shooting two at once!” This from a man who became (obstensibly) famous as an actor in serial films. Do you suppose these were shot episode by episode, totally in sequence?

Let’s move on to the content that’s not drawn by Batiuk: a fucking Western? Because “shooting two at once”? Maybe this one of Batty’s obscure, beloved old comic covers that he tries to to bend the narrative in order to make it fit? We Google “comic book ‘arizona ranger‘”  to find the source…there’s Lone Ranger comics…Texas Ranger comics…there’s, um, this…

Turns out it’s not a vintage comic after all, but is instead another title from TB’s imaginary Batom Comics: he mentioned The Arizona Ranger in his blog two years ago (along with Charlie and Chuck and Mr. Sponge). So TB commissioned this “tribute” (from an artist who is old enough to be a contemporary of Cliff Anger’s) and really doesn’t care if it makes any sense.

Honor Thy Anger

Scouring “Fleabay” for a decoder ring. Buying advertising space “in papers around the country” to run an encrypted invitation to fans. Booking an Art Deco palace for a reception and bringing in enough Ovaltine to float a  spaceship. The lengths that a major studio will go to in promoting a movie, right? Albeit a movie that’s still in production (and hell, we never even saw them delivering the finished script). Nope! Turns out this whole shindig was staged by Pete Regenbogen just to cheer up ol’ Cliff.

Thank You Vera Much

TheDiva
June 16, 2016 at 1:02 am
Cliff Anger gets a huge tribute in his honor, while his costar is just trotted out and expected to fawn on him the way everyone else does. Yep, sounds about right for this strip.

Eww! Old people flirting! Hard to find much else to say about today’s installment…Mason’s expression in panel one is not so much “I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone” but rather more like he’s just lit a stinkbomb and is off to watch the ensuing hilarity from a safe distance. “I always wondered what…” And we’ll always wonder what Cliff was about to say before Vera cut him off mid-sentence.

Boys Go to Jupiter, to Get More Stupider

$$$WESTVIEW ONCOLOGIST$$$
June 13, 2016 at 9:09 am
It should be pointed out that much ballyhooed Marianne Winters STILL has not shown up. I’m leaning to the side that we will never see her in these strips.

“All right George, now you remember all those loveable, stupid Peorgie and Mudhead movies you were responsible for?”
“My goodness, I haven’t, uh, seen any of those in years…”
“Well, Georgie, what are you going to do when the original “Bottles”, Mudhead’s crazy, hopped up girlfriend, drops right through that celebrity trap door?”
“My…God…Oh, no, that woman’s trying to kill me!”

Starbuck 2016? The movie written and storyboarded by a couple of Westview losers? Filmed on location in Cleveland, Ohio? We couldn’t care less. “Classic” Starbuck? You mean that rollicking, life-altering, black and white serial film from the thirties forties fifties early sixties? Now we’re talkin’! If locating the leading man involved following the weakest of clues to track him down and invade his ratty New York City apartment, can you imagine the lengths Team Starbuck went to in order to dig up  Cliff’s leading lady, Vera…Vera Nash?

Ham Handed

The ass-lathering continues today as Kablichnick steps up to the plate. The normally dour and cranky science teacher positively gushes about how Starbuck Jones inspired him: “Follow our hearts”? “Do what we love”? “Succeed“? Teacher, please. When it comes to unbridled contempt  for one’s students, Jim Kablichnick makes Les Moore look like Mr. Chips. The only thing he loves about his job is the opportunity it provides for him to spout his views on climate change, interspersed with painfully unfunny “jokes.”  Cliff expresses his surprise at meeting someone gullible enough to have bought his line of hokum. And we all know about the Ovaltine, but do the Junior (hah!) Spacemen of America employ some kind of secret handshake? It looks like the ol’ Commodore greets his fans by grasping their clenched fists.