Cindy – Page 10 – Son of Stuck Funky

Chemical Snore Fare

Awww, how adorable. Cindy will graciously refrain from being a psychotic, jealous, sexually-threatened shrew while her husband does his job. How very thoughtful of her. Why she needs to be involved in the cancer movie is another question entirely, but that’s just how things work in the Funkyverse. By the time this is over Pete will be “head writer”, Boy Lisa will be “storyboarding” it and Funky will be running craft services, from Ohio, via Skype.

You don’t normally see a lot of cleavage in the strip. Not that I’m demanding more, mind you, in fact quite the opposite is true. But, for reasons only known to him and probably best left unexplored, he had to make sure to remind readers that Cindy is still hot, just in case we somehow missed every Cindy arc since her ignominious Act III return. The characters in this strip “grow” more slowly than stalagmites.

In case you’re counting, “Cindy is jealous over Mason’s co-star” is the sixth old arc he’s mentioned over the last four weeks. It’s officially a trend now and not just a weird FW anomaly. Someone’s wallowing in nostalgia again, why is anyone’s guess. It seems that having an excuse to use Lisa again sort of jump-started his interest a little, which had been noticeably waning over the last, uh, five years or so. Sigh.

Pickup Basketball

We’ll have to take Les’ word about the “beauty” of Mason and Cindy’s second home: what we’ve been shown for the last three days, the exterior resembles a loading dock. We don’t get to see much of the interior: most of the scenery is obscured by word zeppelins. I’m sure it’s not Batiuk’s intent, but there still feels like a lot of sexual tension between these two. I’m not able to dig up the strip where Les first meets Lisa (help me out, billytheskink), but Les’ “main pickup move” must have been strong indeed with Cayla, as seen in this 2008 strip.

Barr to Bubu to Jarre

Composer of Wacky Names Tom Batiuk is batting .500 with today’s strip. “Hershey Barr” is a little childish, sounds too much like “Mason Jarre,” and, as a rapper name, could almost be construed as racist (whatever else Batiuk is, he’s not racist). “Bubu Zayla,” after I took a moment to say it out loud and think about it in an “alt-Latina” context, actually made me chuckle, even if the whole vuvuzela thing dates back to the 2010 World Cup. Seems odd that a house with a multi-car garage would be laid out in a manner that requires you to exit the garage after parking in order to get into the house. I also wonder which of the previous owners saw fit to install a tampon vending machine next to the front door.

In Them High-Rollin’ Hills

School chums Cindy and Les arrive, not at the Jarre’s beach house, but at Mason’s new pied-à-terre in “the ‘Hills’.” I don’t know where TB cribbed his California architecture notes, but all those tubular steel railings and odd-sized windows do give the building a sort of Cali modern feel, even if the doors on their three-car garage suggest a public storage unit.

Les’ll Wrestle

“Wrestling out of my weight class“? Again with the sporto metaphors from 97-pound weakling Les. And again with the “Most Popular Girl in the School” crap. Does anyone who graduated high school before the 21st century recall who was the “most popular” girl in the school–not the class but the entire goddam school? The most popular. Whoever she is, I hope she’s holding up even half as well as Cindy here. And while dwelling upon one’s social status in high school may get old, one never outgrows a taste for flirtatious banter.