Cayla – Page 12 – Son of Stuck Funky

What Women’s Lib Doesn’t Know…

Oh wow.

After taking the bold stand that women have been unappreciated for their contributions to comics, (something that hasn’t been true for literal decades,) Batiuk now declares that WOMEN BE SHOPPING.

And I’m pretty conflicted on it. Because on the one hand, it’s a tired old stereotype. It’s Pluggers level humor. It’s an insult to Cayla’s character. And who is Cayla or Batiuk fooling? She hasn’t changed her hair in any meaningful way since Les paid the chemically relaxed shoulder length cut an anemic compliment back in 2011.

You like it? I will literally never ever change it again.

But on the other hand WOMEN DO BE SHOPPING THO.

I feel like we can be too reactionary against stereotyping in general. Stereotypes are usually based on observable trends. Moreover stereotypes are such a fundamental part of human humor, that trying to go on a moral crusade against them is a dumb and fruitless as Baptists trying to ban dancing. (See what I did there.)

Some of the oldest written comedies we have are full of humor based in gender, generational, or cultural stereotypes.

LYSISTRATA: Hello Lampito, my dear friend from Sparta. How beautiful you look, so sweet, such a fine complexion. And your body looks so fit, strong enough to choke a bull.
LAMPITO : Yes, by the two gods, I could pull that off. I do exercise and work out to keep my butt well toned.
Lysistrata, Aristophanes. 411 B.C.

CHREMES: He maintained that women were both clever and thrifty, that they never divulged the Mysteries of Demeter, while you and I go about babbling incessantly about whatever happens at the Senate.
BLEPYRUS: By Hermes, he was not lying!
CHREMES: Then he added that the women lend each other clothes, trinkets of gold and silver, drinking-cups, and not before witnesses too, but all by themselves, and that they return everything with exactitude without ever cheating each other; whereas, according to him, we are ever ready to deny the loans we have effected.
BLEPYRUS: Yes, by Posidon, and in spite of witnesses.
The Ecclesiazusae, Aristophanes. 390 B.C.

It’s not the dumb shopping stereotype that’s the problem here.

It’s that an obsession with shopping is literally the only character trait other than doormat that Cayla has been given in the TEN PLUS YEARS she’s been part of the strip. Nothing makes her unique. She has no agency or desires of her own. Except for her skintone she is identical to Cindy, or Holly, or Mindy, or Jess.

Every female character in this strip is as thinly drawn as the forearms of HE WHO SHALL NOT BE MENTIONED.

Crazed.

Link to Today’s Strip.

You know what?

No.

I spent an entire week working really hard to transmit my enthusiasm for how wonderfully dumb the Phil Holt resurrection arc was; and THIS is how I’ve been rewarded.

With HIM.

Well, jokes on HIM.

I refuse.

For the rest of my shift, I’m going to be lazy. And for the rest of my shift, I will not mention a thing about HIM. It’s what he wants. Attention. And I refuse to give it. The rest of you feel free to savage at will in the comments, as is deserved. For once, I can’t stomach the rightfully earned dismemberment.

So what I’ll say about today is that I really like the porch swing in this strip. I like how it shows up off and on as a gathering place. It gives the strip visual continuity that rewards long time readers, but as far as I remember it doesn’t have the same verbal attention drawn to it by the characters as other locations like Montoni’s. It’s 100% better than that stupid bench that gets talked about all the time by…

Whoah.

That was close.

Cutting it short today so I don’t mess up again. Until tomorrow folks.

They’re All Writing in “Lisa”

Strips like today’s really just make Batiuk’s habit of writing his strips so far in advance extra hilarious. Not only is nobody wearing a mask and everyone is basically touching, you have a roughly hundred year old man on oxygen right in the middle of them. And it’s not like the global pandemic just sprung up in the last week when it was too late to tweak the strip. Batiuk’s had nine months where he could’ve had the artist at least draw masks on the characters to make it look like it reflected reality.
Les blatantly ogling Funky’s ass with both of his hands in his pockets while his Lesser Wife is standing right next to him is extra awkward.
When did Crazy Harry’s wife die from cancer/get murdered by him/starve because his part time job at a comic shop couldn’t feed them both? It’s especially sad when you’re a Funky Winkerbean character whose tragic untimely death doesn’t even merit an arc, or Les silently staring at your obituary in the paper.

You Forgot the Hot Chocolate And Cookies, Cayla

Link To Today’s Strip

Oh, yay. Another sideways strip. If your comics are so awkwardly wordy that they have to be turned sideways to fit in all the dialogue, maybe you’re doing something wrong. Or maybe visual storytelling isn’t for you.

What Lisa-related writing do you think Les is working on while he sits there silently while Cayla literally praises his greatness and showers him with kisses? That is one awkwardly clunky line Cayla is reading. I wonder if this was one of those situations where Les won because nobody else bothered to enter.

I have a feeling that Batiuk tells himself “You deserved to win” every day, when he thinks about the Pulitzer. I can see how he could be that deluded, given that he can spew out garbage like last week’s arc and still get it published and somehow get interviewed in major newspapers like he’s an Artist.

It’s the Month of Lestember!

This way to today’s real strip.