Trombone Sortie

No.
No No No No No No No No No No No.
Not Dinkle. Please, not a whole week of Dinkle. Please.

So, with the bargaining stage of grief out of the way, today’s strip forehead exhibition involves Westview’s community band practice. Do you remember that Wally was in the community band? Do you remember that Dinkle conducts the community band?
You’re lying.

Interestingly, the circa-1994 music booklet that Wally found at home (inside the boxes Lefty presumably tossed on his porch one day) was put out by legendary New Jersey cover group ThatBand.

Formula Pun

Always looking for new ways to show his total disdain for his students, Jim Kablichnick takes a different approach in today’s strip. The resulting pun is not totally terrible, but, given the students’ reactions, appears to have had the desired effect.

So does this mean that students watch Cosmos in every class at Westview High except for Kablichnick’s science class? And how does Cody have the context to compare Kablichnick to an Australian magician and entertainer?

Hills, that is…

It would appear that everything TB knows about California comes from watching the Beverly Hillbillies. Today’s strip, in fact, literally depicts “swimming pools… movie stars”.

It took a week’s worth of strips for Mega Comics to fire Pete and a single classic “tell don’t show” moment for some Hollywood producers to all but hire him? Ugh. If it takes a week of chicken jokes to get the script finished, let’s all hope legendary script doctor Larry Gelboo is involved.

Shanks on a plane

In today’s strip, Pete puts his Starbuck Jones comic down long enough to wistfully look out the window as his plane prepares to land at Van Nuys Airport. He looks remarkably content and fairly happy, how many weeks do you give that?

For SOSF’s resident beady-eyed nitpickers, Pete appears to be reading a copy of Starbuck Jones #115. This is a key issue, as Starbuck’s little blue rabbit-like pal dies in the vacuum of space because Starbuck took him out onto a disintegrating asteroid without a space suit.

Hacks Headroom

I think there is some conversation or something happening in today’s strip, possibly involving former Cleveland mayor Dennis Kucinich. Sorry, I’ve been marveling at how these relatively small screens continue to capture most of Darin’s legume-like head rather than paying attention to whatever he and Kucinich are on about.

In other news, it’s Throwback Thursday!

What was happening in the Batiukverse 10 years ago today?
Wally, looking far too much like Act III Darin, tells Lefty he has decided to go back to Afghanistan after a single counseling session at the VA Hospital.