Tag: Cayla’s pink shirt

A Big Pick-Me-Up.

Link to Today’s Comic.

Once again stayed up late waiting for Sunday’s strip to drop. Les and Cayla are in LA, getting picked up by the world’s worst Uber. Mason has always been portrayed as a dingbat. I would not feel safe with him behind the wheel of a Hummer/Hearse Hybrid during LA rush hour.

It seems that ‘Comic-Con’ this year was completely summed up in one panel of nerdery last Sunday. The awards show might as well have been a poorly attended wedding reception for all the excitement and industry flavor we got.

I’m pretty flabbergasted by it, really. We did get plenty of tone deaf ‘nerdy’ humor last year, and the year of the great Holly Winkerbean Starbuck Hunt. But the idea that Batiuk would have nothing more to say during a Comic Con, that he’s both out of new ideas and not interested in recycling his old ones, it’s not like him. It’s almost worrying. Lack of interest in activities that you once enjoyed is a classic hallmark of depression. Can someone check on him?

Well it has certainly been an interesting couple weeks at the helm. I interpret this awards quickie as TommyBats realizing that while the IRL ‘Lisa’s Story’ was nominated for a Pulitzer, the ‘in-universe’ book has never been similarly rewarded. The Eisner nomination, but not win, is a way of giving his opus similar accolades both within his world and without.

Beckoning Chasm is up tomorrow, to see us through the sights of LA. If Cayla is impressed with Union Station, wait till she sees the Scientology Building.

Ghosts of Strips Prescient.

Link to Today’s Comic.

And BOOM we’re there! Like TommyBats had suddenly remembered he didn’t have a Comic Con angle this year and so last-minute pulled this out of his self-aggrandizing ass.

As some of you may know, the Stuck Funky writer’s bullpen have no ability to preview Sunday strips. So, may I say, that I predicted today’s strip on Thursday nearly perfectly, and many commenters also guessed the Women-Be-Shopping angle.

And what kind of nonsense is that last panel? Long boxes? People buying and selling comic books? SDCC is dominated by the synergistic interests of megaconglomerates like Disney/Marvel/Fox/Lucasfilm and AT&T/Warner Bros/DC Comics. It’s a pop culture trade show, with booth after corporate booth, trying to generate buzz on the newest Netflix TV Show, Marvel Movie, Video Game, or Cartoon in order to increase stock prices based on predicted reception of a new release. It’s the nerd equivalent of wandering through the Varied Industries building at the State Fair, while people try to sell you hot tubs, massage chairs, and seamless gutters.

You want a folksy but crowded ‘farmer’s market’ of genuine nerds pursuing private enterprise? Don’t go to San Diego.

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.”

I’ve got nothing

Today’s strip

I don’t know quite what to make of this. Usually I can tell what the punchline’s supposed to mean so I can ascertain how unsuccessful Batiuk is, but this leaves me baffled. Are the Rotary Mentors called “Angels” or something? That must be it.

And no doubt that made Cayla think for a moment that Les had lost his mind before he explained his odd comment. I wonder if she was supposed to (like me) think that Les has gone around the bend and meant that Lisa was going to make sure everything worked by offering spiritual support for the Run.

The Run… God, it’s this dumb thing again. Even worse as they have decided to have printed t-shirts with Lisa sitting on that damn bench, as if that would mean anything to anyone.

Other annoying things: The fact that it’s always called “The Lisa’s Legacy Run” no matter what. That Cayla is apparently packing Les’s suitcase. That Les’s smug smirk appears in every panel where he’s facing us. That Cayla calls Les “The World Famous Author” despite the fact that his signing at the Columbus Museum of Art apparently is a bigger deal than anything he’s done before. And finally, that damn pink shirt she wears.

Anyway, this is it for me. Have fun with Epicus Doomus as he takes over starting tomorrow!