cellphone – Page 18 – Son of Stuck Funky

The Chick is in the Male

Okay, I know the implication we’re supposed to take from this is that Blondie is cheating on Dullard. But there are two things wrong with this scenario.

Firstly, Tom Batiuk seems to want to pull this “innocent happening taken as indecent” stunt again, after we’d just had the “Marianne Winters kills herself over kiss photo.” We know it’s going to turn out to be a big nothingburger. “Blondie has an affair” is not going to be on the menu. It’s a tease and everyone knows it’s a tease.

Secondly, this is Funky Winkerbean. Exciting (or even interesting) things are not allowed in this strip.

What I find most baffling about this episode is the architecture. Yesterday, Dullard opened the door right behind Blondie. Today, she goes wandering through the house, blithely unaware that Dullard is sneaking around behind her. Just how stupid and unaware is she supposed to be? Isn’t she supposed to be looking after a toddler, or has Skyler already wandered off to play in traffic? (Who wants to bet Skyler won’t make an appearance this week? Didn’t think so.)

Well, she’s a female character in Funky Winkerbean. I guess that answers that. Stupid and unaware are two of the major traits of the women in this strip. Throw in “fat” and Blondie’s future in this strip is set in cement.

Phonies

Link to today’s strip.

Greetings, folks, BChasm back in the stagnant pool for the next two weeks! Strap yourselves in and get ready for excitement! Ha ha, just kidding, I meant to say “excrement.”

So, we’re back with Dullard and Blondie, whose name I don’t remember and don’t really care to. Dullard, looking weary as usual, opens the door and then rummages in his purse for his keys…hey, that’s doing it backwards! Anyway, he overhears part of a conversation which gives his tiny brain a momentary pause.

Admittedly, he might have a reason to worry. If you’re talking about a bad thing (“I have cancer”), you’d phrase it in the way that Blondie phrases it. If you’re talking about a good thing (“I bought Dullard some of his favorite pencils for a surprise”) you’d probably add a phrase like “until the big day” or something. So it sounds kind of bad, especially if you’re of the mind that everything that happens is terrible, which certainly describes our cast.

However, the fact that she utters the phrase at all is pretty baffling here. How dense is Blondie, that she seems unaware that a door has just opened behind her? Pretty dense, I am gathering. This could have been fixed if panel one showed Dullard rummaging in his purse, then bumping the door which slowly opens, i.e., it was not really closed and could open silently. But that’s not what we’re shown. And, I should point out, I’m not a professional cartoonist. Is there a professional cartoonist in the house?

Editors? We don’t need no steenkin Editors!

Ho Ho Ho

So it took until today’s strip for anyone to think about contacting Marianne?

I guess that is consistent with last week, when Mr. Director waited until Mason showed up at the lot to dress him down for his excursion to Marianne’s mom’s abode. We see today that he has a phone, so obviously that wasn’t stopping him from calling Mason last week, or Marianne anytime between last week and now. Must not be a talker… or he knows Mason screens and ignores his calls (which makes some sense, Mason makes all the decisions on this lot, after all). Marianne apparently does the same.

I consider myself fairly fluent in comic strip language, but am quite unsure as to what exactly panel 3’s wavy-border is supposed to signify. As I am sure most all of you know, wavy panel borders typically mean that what we are seeing is a dream/daydream, hallucination, or flashback. However, Marianne’s trip to the Hollywood sign began in an un-wavy panel (and also in color, for… reasons?) back on Sunday. I guess it is not unfair to assume that Marianne’s scenes are supposed to actually be occurring but in a surreal state, but it comes across more like the wavy panel border is being used to signal a change in setting. This is really awkward. Nice shot of the “HO” sign, though.

Exclamation Point!

“Amazing” is one of those words that’s completely lost its meaning from overuse. What amazes me is that Jess is still standing there holding up that giant video camera. Something else that amazes me about today’s strip is how Cindy checks her phone and the first thing she sees is the tabloid headline and photo of Masone and Marianne. Did somebody see it and send it to her? Does she subscribe to “DMZ’s” mobile alerts? No matter. Batiuk has spent months establishing Cindy’s insecurity and self-doubt, and almost as much time setting up a showdown between her and Mason’s sexy (though sweet and innocent) co-star. Shit’s about to get real, yo.

A Peck Before Lying

Link to today’s strip

Wow, talk about a pathetic waste of time, even more so than the usual Sunday strip. Apparently TomBan had a bunch of extra “Ominously Smirking Frankie” drawings lying around that he felt he needed to re-purpose, or perhaps he once again assumes his readers will forget the plot unless he drives it home over and over again for days on end. Either way the hackery just leaps off the page as the “story” (as it were) continues its inexorable death spiral into nothingness. What a sad-sack-sorry display.