Tag: Cayla

Two is Agony so Three’s a Clown.

Link to Today’s Comic.

Cayla seems to think that during their trip to Sandy Eggo they will actually get to ‘see the sights.’ Eat sushi in Little Tokyo, dance to mariachi music in Old Town, maybe go to the zoo to make interracial jokes about the pandas. (All things I made time to do during my Botcon San Diego trip.)

Obviously Les is planning the vacation will take place entirely within the confines of the San Diego Convention Center. Cayla will be lucky to drag him across Harbor Drive for a single sitdown meal that isn’t convention concessions food.

I’m guessing that she’ll spend most of the convention pressed against the glass in the Sails Pavilion, staring out the window wistfully at the Gaslamp Quarter; surrounded by things she neither understands nor cares for.

No wonder Les wants to bring Crazy Harry along. He wants a solid tie breaking vote in favor of skipping supper again to wait in the endless Hall H line for another seven hours.

Eisnerian Gothic

Link to Today’s Comic.

I would make some kind of comment on Caucayla not knowing the location of the awards because Wimmin Amirite? But apparently Les previously didn’t even know the award existed.

I’ve been to San Diego for a Botcon once in the summer. It was really nice coastal climate, and not any hotter or muggier than Midwestern summer can get. And since when has CauCayla been heat intolerant?

The second panel is pretty great though, with Darin fleeing from a conversation still taking place while Les and Cayla do their best impersonations of Queen Elizabeth, with a wave goodbye more wooden than Cigar Store Indians. Cayla has a halo around her head…perhaps a first miracle on her own path to sainthood?

This art is really starting to annoy me though. Everyone’s face has become interchangeable. You remember when Cayla had a broad nose and Darin had a beak? The artist sure doesn’t. He has two noses to use, C-shaped or L shaped, and he barely remembers which character gets which. Batiuk can’t be bothered to push Burchett for consistency of character design in a strip worshiping comics as an art form next to opera in importance.

Compare with yesterday’s Crankshaft with art by Davis. Look at that detail! He carefully drew the wedding picture on the wall as a totem of the romantic creature in Ralph that the drive-in waitress has reawakened in him.

All Les and Cayla get on their wall is the avant garde, “Grey Rectangle Against Grey Background.”

Don’t be yellow

Today’s strip shows the extremely jaundiced Linda speaking to Cayla in the main office about this week’s storyline. Even though yesterday’s strip said that Les was the faculty advisor of The Bleat, Linda today suggests that she’s the faculty advisor, even though unlike Les, we’ve never in fact seen her in that position. Guess Linda’s just one of those  busybody teachers who has her hand in literally everything at the school.

Anyway, you have to love the claim that what’s happened this week is an example of those kids “thinking independently”. It just so happens that their “thinking independently” constitutes bullying the principal on behalf of their loathsome faculty advisor over a subject that none of those kids could actually care about. Yes, Batiuk, I’m sure that all these kids, upon seeing Les’ tantrum, would be persuaded that publicly supporting him would be the proper thing to do, potentially slandering the principal in the process.

And it’s not surprising. If you were to view Batiuk’s work in total, his idea of a child thinking independently and admirably would be one who agrees with everything he, or his author avatar, believes. Otherwise they’re just foolish and intellectually vapid. (Seriously, he had Owen not knowing what glass is) Batiuk may think that Cayla’s comment is a joke, but his entire oeuvre shows that she ought to be completely serious.

Anyway, Linda really ought to get to a doctor to deal with her jaundice. Jesus.

My Mother The Trilogy

Link To Today’s Strip

That certainly escalated quickly. The insane “mom” stuff is beyond snark or parody at this point, as Batty’s endless quest to re-live and bask in the glory of his “Lisa’s Story” heyday has him turning every character in Les’ orbit into Lisa-worshiping drones who never, ever stop singing her praises and spreading The Word.  Obviously Boy Lisa has no idea what Lisa would have thought of Cayla, as he barely even knew her and not only that, “what Lisa thinks about Cayla” has already been (ahem) adequately covered.

In “real life” Darin’s friends and family would probably be growing quite concerned regarding his bizarre Lisa obsession. Wandering around Westview talking about her, giving a huge cash windfall to a Lisa charity, always referring to her as “mom” as if she raised him, it’s very peculiar behavior. What kind of father with a child Skyler’s age has time to meander around to book signings on a whim? What did he do, arrive at his parent’s or in law’s house and announce that he was going out to pay tribute to his “real” mother now? It’s deranged.

And The Signing Said Annoying Bearded Geeky People Need Not Apply

Link To Today’s Strip

Oh, OK, I get it now. This gag is obviously aimed at Batiuk’s fellow “authors”, or at least those who’ve participated in book signings. See, if you’re doing a book signing and it’s a busy and successful book signing, you won’t have the time to fool around with your technology device and check your email, as you’re way too busy signing books. At the book signing. Hilarious. “Les always says”…uh yeah Cayla, Les says a lot of things but Confucius he ain’t.

And just think, if you’ve written a Trilogy that’s THREE books, hence thrice the signings. Book signings, just to be clear. I know I say this a lot but goddamn, that is some of the clunkiest and downright piss-poor dialog ever written, by anyone, ever. He just has a knack for putting together sentences that simply couldn’t exist anywhere else. The artwork kind of blows too, especially Cayla in that last panel, as I’m pretty sure she still had teeth the last time we saw her. Although a toothless woman delivering a toothless punch line is pretty apt.

Speaking of crappy writing, I hate how everyone always endlessly repeats the full official title of everything every single time they mention it.

“Les isn’t here, he’s at a Lisa’s Trilogy book signing.”
“How are the Lisa’s Trilogy book signings going?”
“The Lisa’s Trilogy book signings are going well. Like Les always says, it’s a great Lisa’s Trilogy book signing if a SoSF guest host loses it and goes completely off the rails over typing the words “signing” and “Lisa’s Trilogy” over and over again!”

Maybe that’s why he does it, or maybe he just assumes his readers are total imbeciles, or maybe he’s just extremely lazy. I figure it’s all of the above plus a bunch of other stuff I don’t know (and don’t want to know) about. It’s one of his most annoying traits and whether he grasps it or not it makes his characters seem like total idiots.