You’re probably a craven liar like everyone else in Hollywood, Ms. Soyring

“My pal Pete Ratti,” declaims Derwood Faroni in today’s strip, “would be perfect for putting words into the mouth of Mason Jarr.

“Fortunately, Les, my sort-of stepfather, whose wife Lisa died of cancer, has warned me about you Hollywood types, so I expect you to betray me,” he continues.


Also: The artiste works in a few bricks in panel 1, and uses ¾ perspective in panel 2 to go wild with a brick sidewalk.


“Oh, yeah, Lisa was my birth mother.”

Your head is much smaller in person, Ms. Schiferl

“I’m Darin Fairgood,” exclaims Durrhey Faroni, as he madly runs down a bemused Cindy Sitts in today’s strip. And, boy, has he got a recommendation for her! His old pal, Pete Persall, the recently canned former author of the Mr. Sponge comics.

Cindy, meanwhile, has no idea what Durrhey is going on about, even though she’s dating the lead in the Starbuck Jones movie, and has literally just left a conversation with Les about needing a script doctor for that comic-book-based project.

In BanTom’s ongoing War on Human Proportions, today the heads are tiny, when sometimes they’re as big as torsos. And so it goes.

And yes, I’m using a computer to generate random last names for all the characters. It’s the only way I can keep up with Tom Batiuk.

Quid Amateur Quo

Less than a week ago I marveled at how Batiuk had engineered a Hollywood screenwriting opportunity for recently fired comic book writer Pete. Today’s strip has me marveling at how wrong I was.

Charles
April 19, 2015 at 8:47 pm
…The suggested storyline is so absurd it’s insulting. The producers aren’t going to go to the lead actor to get recommendations for script doctors…and in the extreme situation where they do so, they’re not going to accept the suggestion when it turns out to be a rank amateur who just got his ass fired from a crappy comic book company.

Charles, I’ll go ya a couple better: how about an even more rank amateur, who, after dragging out the process of writing the screenplay (which he insisted on doing), decides it’s too much work and walks away, sinking the project while still getting paid? On the recommendation of the star’s new girlfriend?

Married to the Slob

I was married to him and he never saw me blush.”

“[T]he most responsible one in our class”? Sure, back in high school Les demonstrated enough responsibility to man a machine gun and sell milk. As an adult? He’s been “responsible” for quietly standing by while Susan threw herself under the bus, annoying his fellow Kilimanjaro climbers, and of course torpedoing the movie that was based upon his book.