Paint the room red!

In today’s strip, the doormat Cayla worries whether the sleeping accommodations and paint on the walls are adequate to properly house the glory who is Mason Jarr, the movie actor. As a reminder, here is an image of Mason Jarr, the movie actor, as he unlocks a car:

Mason Jarr unlocks Masons car. This schlub only recently moved up from guy on couch.
Mason Jarr unlocks Mason’s car. This schlub only recently moved up from “guy on couch.”

Based on her expression of dismay and despair in the last panel, Cayla looks as though Les regularly beats her. BanTom’s portrayal of anyone who isn’t Les Moore is pathetic. She should be saying: “Now, look here, you patriarchal cracker! You clean the damn house for your unannounced house guest! I’m going to Las Vegas. On your dime.”

Instead we got this:

Cayla: Where will Mason Jarr, the movie actor, sleep? Les: In bed, obviously. Mason Jarr, the movie actor, knows where to sleep! I guess some children WERE left behind!

Woo hoo! Les’s hair is on fire! Oh, wait.

Today’s strip, at first glance, seems to show Les, head aflame in the purifying fire of just desserts. But no, they’re just burning their Yuletide tree out in the field. That practice makes my Californian instincts turn to rage, and calls to mind Johnny Cash’s infamous “buzzards” incident.[1] Then I remembered that Ohio used to burn its rivers (for decades), and it all seemed to make more sense.[2]

The picture of the Cuyahoga River on fire that ended up in Time Magazine a month later – a truly arresting image showing flames leaping up from the water, completely engulfing a ship – was actually from a much more serious fire in November 1952. No picture of the ’69 river fire is known to exist.—Cleveland Historical

My live-in expert on all things Ohio tells me that residents of Buckeye Lake toss their trees into the water’s edge. This encourages the growth of algae, which attracts fish, which makes for easy fishing in the springtime. By the next winter, the tree will have completely decomposed. That seems awfully green for the midwest, but it’s a damn sight greener than just lighting it on fire and smirking at it.

Given how Cayla usually reacts to news from Les, I’ve corrected the dialog in panel 3.

Cayla asks, 'How much can we make Mason pay?'

  1. To be fair to Mr. Cash’s memory, the part about roasting 49 California condors appears to be apocryphal.  ↩
  2. Speaking of uniquely Cleveland things, thanks to @Nathan Obral (yesterthread) for pointing out that the Lost reference had extra meaning for those in the Cleveland TV market.  ↩

Jarrlost

In today’s yawner, Bantom awkwardly works in a cultural reference that is astoundingly timely by his standards. I’ve never seen Lost, but its last first-run episode aired on May 23, 2010. At the time Bantom put this strip to bed, that reference was only 3½ years old. That qualifies as “ripped from the headlines” for this creaky old oeuvre.

Still, gotta love the talking house in panel 2.

Jarr Jarr!

Meesa grateful!
Meesa grateful!

In today’s strip, Mason “Hollywood” Jarr thanks St. Les the Righteous Smirker for some as-yet unspecified “help.” Les’s speech balloon in panel 3 is too small to contain the text I expected: “Mason Jarr, the movie actor who was meant to portray me, Les Moore, whose one true wife died of cancer, but then couldn’t, because kill fee, and took the job of portraying Starbuck Jones in the coming Starbuck Jones film adaptation, in which Mason Jarr appears.”

Back in panel 1, with its rakish split-screen motif, Mason’s poolside phone chat illustrates why California is so much better than Ohio. Mason’s illustrator, however, has failed to pick up on recent trends in portraying action heroes. Here I’m thinking of Chris Pratt’s transformation from amiable schlub to rock-hard stud. Mason, in contrast, looks positively couchey-potatoey, gooey-wooey.

All I would have to do to become an action star is move a mere ¼ inch from reality, without logging any gym time, if this awesome guy is any proof.