Lesser Whark’s comment on today’s strip: “Darin shows a rare flash of awareness that his plans are needlessly convoluted.” Tony, bless his little heart, is at least trying to pick up on the lingo. Funky is content to peer through his dollar-store half-rim specs, opting to remain silent and be thought a fool, rather than opening his mouth and removing all doubt.
iPie®
Lesser Whark
April 21, 2011 at 5:52 amOh dear. I’m an iOS developer, so Darin is speaking about a subject very close to me. Is this how zoologists feel about Mark Trail every day?
So began a well-informed and well-liked comment on Thursday’s post, wherein Lesser Whark proceeded to dismantle TB’s portrayal of MBA slash pizza-shop manager slash webdev genius Darin. Since the saga continues to unfold this week, I’ve asked Lesser Whark to lend some more of his insight.
LW: “I can’t comment on the technobabble in the first panel, but hopefully you have another reader who can.” My Googling tells me Darin’s probably referring to the Common Short Code Association, who assign numbers (“short codes”) to which an SMS or text message can be sent. Or the Ohio-centric Batiuk could be giving a nod to the Columbus Society of Communicating Arts
LW: “Wrong: you don’t host the mobile barcode scanner app on your own site. Instead, you link to the app store for their smartphone.”
The punchline (not shown here) has a clearly overwhelmed Tony wishing for “the good old days” of about five years ago. Outta the way, Pops! We’ll have more commentary from Lesser Whark as the week goes on.
Waste of Space
Speaking of painful digging into the past, I suspect a bit of revisionist history…as it would appear that Jessica was the popular cheerleader and not at all a member of the AV club.
Turns out our little Darling was both! I guess she gets the audiovisual gene from her Mom, Jan Murdoch Darling, the famous television producer whom we never met. I’m resorting to the bulleted list format to get through everything going on in today’s strip.
- Another tribute to another obscure comic. How ironic is that banner ALWAYS ALL NEW STORIES ? Nothing says “ALL NEW” like cutting and pasting your character’s head onto a half-century-old comic book cover. And would it have killed Batiuk to maybe Photoshop a suggestion of boobs onto that figure in the red spacesuit?
- The Three Faces of Jessica:
- Jessica’s disembodied head at the “top” of the panel has been lifted from the “model sheet” on the FW site’s Meet the Cast page.
- On the comic book cover: “she” is apparently diving to avoid raygun fire…why the hell is she smiling?
- In the inset, TB finally manages to make her look attractive…meanwhile Summer needs an eyebrow waxing, and Les resembles a Muppet with cleft palate.
- A little demeaning to cheerleaders, no? I guess unless a girl plays “real” sports, she’s not to be taken seriously.
Happy Easter everybody! — TFH
Yes We Khan
Khan’s leaving? I thought he’d headed back to Iraqistan…I mean he hasn’t been seen on the premises since last September. Westview loses a coffee shop (that’s cool: there’s still Jitterz) but gains a deli. Maybe if Darin’s not too busy he can whip up an “I-Phone” app that lets tech-savvy Westviewvians order sandwiches!
The Urge for Going
“Now that I’ve hired Darin” (I thought Tony made that decision)…Funky gets down to the business of planning a getaway. The absence of paying customers at the counter affords him plenty of space to lay out his travel brochures. Maybe hotshot Darin should be given the task of “managing” Cory while the Winkerbeans are away. Last time Funky and Holly left him on his own, things got a little out of hand…
Son of Stuck Funky 
