Oh, good, it’s Chullo and Glasses, back for an arc. Actually, it’s not good, but it could be worse. It could be Les.
And Glasses, no, you’re not a senior until you start senior year. That’s how it works. Here’s an example you’ll understand. If you want to go from your house to Montoni’s, you’re not AT Montoni’s as soon as you leave your house. You’ve still got all those steps to take.
No wonder it took Chullo and Glasses 14 years to get to senior year. They’re dumber than rocks.
Hey, have you ever wondered what goes on with band kids in the summers, before Lefty gets ahold of the big-and-brassy, loud-and-flashy, Westview High School Scapegoat marching band? Well then, today’s strip is for you! Turns out there is no “before”, as Lefty asserts year-round control of the extracurricular lives of several dozen high school students.
Looks like Owen is still a member of the band, entering what I think is his fourth senior year at WHS. To the surprise of no one, he still has not gotten any better at playing or maintaining his trumpet.
But, unfortunately, it is Dinkle who is the focus of this strip. I do not like these characters in the least, but I do think the punchline is a step above terrible. What is not, however, is the entire set up, which is utterly destroyed by a small piece of artwork.
It makes next to no sense for Dinkle to be so upset that Lefty’s multifunction battery-operated device (smartphone) can perform the function of his single-function battery-operated device (pitch tuner). That small box he is holding, with its clearly discernible button and speaker grate, is a fairly accurate depiction of an electronic pitch tuner. This is “old-fashioned”? No. No it is not. NOT. AT. ALL.
What would be “old-fashioned” would be a tuning fork, or one of those little round harmonica things that telegram messengers in movies from the 1940s blow into before they sing. Had TB drawn either one of those, this strip would have been a far less infuriating read.
Anyways, thanks for putting up with me for a fortnight. BC, I believe, takes over tomorrow. No, not that one, the funny one.
Fired? Pete’s been fired?
Welcome to CloudFunkyCuckooLand, folks. Batiuk has at long last thrown off the bowlines and sailed away at last from the harbor of continuity and logic.
Sure, the editors tasked him with taking Mister Sponge in a “darker and grittier” direction, but the clone idea was Pete’s own, and he enthusiastically sold it to his bosses. When, as they anticipated, controversy ensues, his editors reassure Pete that his story has “lit up the internet” and put sales of their comic book “over the moon.” They outline a plan (presumably involving Pete) to further boost revenue by spinning the one title into three. When Pete predictably complains about the increased workload (his current output is already enough to trigger Pete’s psychoses), his nerdbosses calmly throw him overboard in favor of the Netbusters guy.
Suddenly jobless and 400 miles from home, Pete is concerned not for himself but for the “poor readers,” represented by Owen in a panel 3 which presumably takes place months hence: the same Owen who was devastated to learn that his absorbent and yellow and porous hero had been “retcloned” has dutifully shelled out for all three of the resulting comics and pronounces them “cool.”
Well, there isn’t much to say about this one as it’s just a continuation of yesterday’s Owen reaction scene featuring the “geek rage” that Tom Ban finds so very amusing. At least someone does, I guess. I mean sure, “teenager wildly overreacts to relatively trivial development” has been a standard FW trope since day one so bagging on today’s strip for that is like complaining about the way Ban Tom draws noses, it’s more or less a constant.
The only real question is where is he going (if anywhere) with this? My guess is he’ll do five days of this then have Owen say he’ll definitely keep buying Mister Sponge anyway as an astonished John looks on like he’s never seen an irrational comic book dork before. It’s the simplest and thus most likely outcome. I guess he could segue into Owen going online and acting like one of the whackadoos and twit tots he was mocking a few weeks ago, but that seems like an awful lot of activity and plot momentum for FW. He could also cut back to Pete and his reaction to the reaction to his comic book, but again, that’s a lot of activity for a weekly FW arc.
What I don’t get is what he’s trying to say about “comic book fans” with this stuff. Are we supposed to laugh along with them for being the lovable little comic book-obsessed scamps they are? Are we supposed to be laughing AT them for being such moronic gullible losers? It’s all very unclear sometimes.
Well, it’s another Sunday time-waster starring Owen. I recognize that’s a really redundant statement, but like that fetid chullo, there it is.
Tom Batiuk has some thoughts on the original King Kong, and he is of a mind to lecture us on its short-comings.
Let that thought sink in for a few minutes.
In preparation for today’s post, unlike Tom Batiuk, I actually sat down and watched King Kong (1933). If you’ve never seen it…well, you probably know the plot anyway, but some of what I note below can be considered SPOILERS.
1. No one on the voyage knows they are looking for a giant ape. Carl Denham has heard there’s “something” on Skull Island, and he knows it’s called “Kong,” but he doesn’t know what it is.
2. Furthermore, all he wants to do is photograph it. That they end up capturing it is not the point of the voyage–that’s Denham’s last minute improvisation. But Owen says “determined to capture” as if that was the goal.
3. Denham and crew do not see any dinosaurs “along the way.” They don’t spot any dinosaurs until well after seeing Kong for the first time. At this point, they’re trying to rescue Ann Darrow so they have other goals in mind than film-making or capturing animals.
3. The dinosaurs were not “small,” though some are slightly smaller than Kong (which still makes them pretty huge). And they definitely don’t appear to be “a lot easier to capture” or easier to control. They cause several deaths. (Remarkably ghastly deaths for the time, too.) Of all the dinosaurs in the film, only one can be considered “small” – a bear-sized beast that climbs up a vine in an attempt to menace John Driscoll.
These things effectively negate everything in today’s strip.
I try to keep from saying anything about Tom Batiuk personally in these posts…but this is shameful. There are really only two explanations for this. A – He wrote this based on vague memories of King Kong, or of the various remakes or sequels. And he didn’t bother to watch the film again to confirm any of this. That’s sheer laziness, especially with a year’s lead time. B – He wrote this, then watched King Kong to see how clever and superior he was; he saw instead that he was King Wrong, but decided it didn’t matter, that no one in his audience would remember King Kong, and even if they did, they wouldn’t bother to watch it either and they’d think Tom Batiuk was some kind of film genius for poking holes in a masterpiece. That’s sheer contempt.
I’m not sure which one is worse, to be honest.
That leads me to my final point about today’s strip –
4. I’m not a psychiatrist, nor do I play one on television. But the whole strip seems to be asking the question, “Why try for something unique and spectacular? Aim for ‘good enough’ and that should be good enough.” Why climb Mount Everest when you can climb the local dump instead? Why go to the Moon when it’s much less dangerous to go to the mall? Why use actual jokes and interesting characters in your comic strip, when you can just use fifth-rate puns and have people smirk to show they “get it”?
Oops…did I type that last one out loud? Whoopsie.
Son of Stuck Funky 
