Tag: Becky

Crow's Nest

Rusty
August 15, 2012 at 2:02 am
What does a Band Mom do? I don’t recall them having an actual role in this strip. Do they help with selling the fundraising turkeys? Do they play in the 4th of July concert in the gazebo? Do they attend band practice? I don’t get it.

TheDiva
August 18, 2012 at 3:05 am
…Oh noez, Becky’s mom is going to be involved with the band! And that’s terrible! We haven’t seen her do a single thing yet, but we’ve just spent an entire week complaining about it so it must be bad!

Señor Tortilla
August 20, 2012 at 12:57 am
Right now, I don’t see any reason to really hate Roberta…

Now do you see it? What I’m seeing is how Becky’s lack of  a backbone enables Mom to turn her job and her life into a nonstop waking nightmare. That lift that the two of them are standing in: there’s no ladder or stairs. Becky had to allow Roberta onto the platform before hitting the “up” button. Becky’s “victim” status is hereby revoked.

The one tidbit of humor that can be gleaned from this strip is that the “young man” whom Roberta is picking on is, naturally, dopey Owen.

Dinkleballs

Harry hopes that “those suggestions” (such as giving her a fake schedule) will make dealing with Roberta easier for Becky. In exchange for his shared wisdom (the rest of which none of us got to hear), Harry asks Becky’s help in retrieving  his “manhood”. No doubt his manhood is carefully preserved in a Mason jar, on a shelf in the Blackburns’  basement, along with those of DSH John and Becky’s father.

The Mother of All Clichés

Yeah, today’s “punchline” is pretty stale. So let’s focus instead on the artwork here: although Dinkle and Becky in panel 1 are shown standing on solid ground, their body language gives the impression that the conversation is taking place on the deck of a ship on a rolling sea. In panel two, each figure lurches to their right, before Harry bobs left in panel 3. It’s disconcerting, but even more disconcerting is the proportion of Becky’s head to her scrawny neck. “It’s like an orange on a toothpick!”

Help Me Harry

Becky continues to vent to anyone within earshot about how crazy her mother is making her, dramatically clutching her head to illustrate her point. So broken is this mother/daughter relationship that she turns to old Harry Dinkle for advice on how to “deal with her”. Harry helpfully shares a mean, passive-aggressive prank she can try. Because telling Roberta point-blank “Thanks for volunteering, but no thanks” isn’t an option.

You Got Hosed

Today’s strip hearkens back not only to this gag from last year, but to the Act I days, when Batiuk crafted enough marching band strips to fill over a half-dozen books. Among the gags-within-the-gag was the fact that the annual Battle of the Bands invariably would take place in the midst of a torrential downpour. Nice to see Batiuk tipping the ol’ Funky fedora to his own funnier and fondly remembered early work. However, I have to wonder what Westview’s equivalent of Groundskeeper Willie is gonna think when he sees that the band has trampled the football field into mud.