Vendo, Vidi, Vici

120110

Life has just commenced to suck even worse for the students of Westview High. Gone are the snack vending machines, leaving only faint shadows on the wall to mark their former location. Apparently Linda has been stationed there to serve as a grief counselor for the traumatized students.

(Aside to our Ohio friends: do they really call vending machines “vendos”? Sounds like some Nadsat slang from A Clockwork Orange.)

One for the Books

Lots to be said about today’s strip, gang!

  • The red title text in panel one really stands out against the muddy, muted greens and pinkish browns of today’s panels.
  • TB casually drops into this otherwise run-of-the-mill, throwaway Sunday setpiece the fact that Pete  is moving back to the big city, nearly four years after he inexplicably moved back to Westview.
  • The name of this secondhand bookstore is sorta clever (certainly more clever than The Village Booksmith). Reminds me of a bar in Bayonne where I used to live that was called He’s Not Here.
  • TB sure has a thing for bookstores and their uncertain fate. In addition to the now-shuttered Booksmith, earlier this year Les recalled a now-demolished bookstore in Kent, Ohio (Les also shares Pete’s proclivity for “haunting” secondhand bookstores).
  • With his balloon head and scrawny neck, Bookstore Guy in the last panel really resembles South Park‘s Mr. Mackey, mmkay?

Titletown

TB is not content to trash the character of Bull by making him seem stupid and ineffectual. Today he has Bull actually sashaying down the corridor to verify Summer’s claim that Ann Fairgood’s Nannys did indeed bring home the District Title trophy to old Westview. I don’t see Ann’s name on that hardware, and the golden figure on top appears to be ice skating rather than shooting baskets, but the sight of it is enough to elicit slackjawed awe from the coach.