Tag: Cliff Anger

Clifford the Big Red

spacemanspiff85
November 28, 2016 at 10:55 pm
Does Batiuk think that any of his readers actually care about Cliff? Because there’s not even at attempt at humor here. Just sticking it to a senator who’s been dead for sixty years, which is weird and bizarre and totally par for the course for Batiuk.

What’s even more annoying and boring than Cliff Anger “trifling with” Sen. McCarthy by cracking wise? It’s Cliff, for the second day in a row, responding to another direct question by sanctimoniously spouting his views. Voting “several times for candidates of various political parties“? Hoo boy! What a rebel. And I’m pretty sure that definition makes most of us Communists. This arc is the comic strip equivalent of “eat your brussel sprouts.” Colorless, musty, verbose brussel sprouts.

Doppelg-Anger

The good news? Batiuk is opting for once to “show, not tell” how Cliff wound up in front of Sen. Joesph McCarthy’s committee. The bad news is that rather giving us a straight-up flashback, TB’s presenting  Mason Jarre starring in The Cliff Anger Story. No way could the guy in today’s panel 3 be the same one we saw in yesterday’s: not with that cheese-cutter nose and maddening, dangling anglerfish-like forelock.

Gerard Plourde
November 26, 2016 at 1:31 am
The “Red Scare” and blacklist of the late 1940’s and 1950’s is a very complex subject and an understanding of that history is not helped by confusing and conflating events…

Many of you in our very erudite audience have rightly taken Batiuk to task for his fuzzy depiction of this chapter in our nation’s history. If TB can’t be bothered to do research, neither can I, though a little Googling turned up an article mentioning Dashiell Hammett, who was in fact called before Joseph McCarthy’s Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations but refused to cooperate. The article fails to mention if Hammett “sassed” Sen. McCarthy in the manner of Cliff Anger; but though he was blacklisted, effectively hastening his demise, he was not put behind bars.

McCliffyism

Hiya, snarkers and snarkettes. Here’s hoping everyone had a delightful, long Thanksgiving weekend. And isn’t it just my luck to have my turn in the SoSF host rotation come up in the midst of the dullest FW story arc of the year. So far in the course of this interview, Cindy’s gotten in one question (“You went to prison?”), and for her lack of basic interview prep is forced to feign attentiveness as ol’ Cliff recounts how it went down in the days of the Red Scare. Cindy’s “two hour documentary” threatens to turn into Gilligan’s “three hour tour” without the laughs.

bayoustu
November 21, 2016 at 12:02 am
Well, BuddyBlog is certainly moving up in the world- they’re now using an actual camera instead of an iPhone!

True enough! And pretty soon, who knows, at some point they might spring for a tripod. I’d actually forgotten that Jessica had moved out to Hollywood last January. Naturally, like the rest of the Westview transplants she’s found employment as another cog in the StarBuddyBlog complex.

Those Four Dreaded Words

Link to today’s strip

No, not “I love you Spanky”….”it’s a long story”…(shudder). Long like two-week arc long or LONG, like this SJ movie mega arc that’s spawning all these spinoff arcs? I like how Cindy, the veteran journalist doing a documentary on an old movie star, is shocked to learn that her subject was in prison, as if it’s the first she’s hearing of it. I also love the little dig at her own work, like all true Westviewians she takes a perverse pleasure in knowing she’s churning out crap, like it’s OK because she’s in on the gag. And I think it’s safe to say that if you’re reading this you probably know the deal there.

Takes One To Blow One

Link to today’s strip

“Lampshades Askew – The Cliff Anger Story”

I’m looking forward to the part where Cliff explains what he was doing for those sixty years between film gigs. Should be some compelling stuff there. She’ll no doubt have minutes of footage to sift through. It’ll be the first documentary film ever where they ADD stuff from the cutting room floor.

“Food, dope, hookers…you can get anything delivered in Manhattan but just try to find a lampshade de-skewerer that speaks f*cking English in that town, consarnit! No one knows the shame I’ve had to endure (beings weeping). Uneven shadows, difficulty reading properly…so many wasted decades….damn that Nixon for de-regulating the lampshade de-skewering industry back in ’73!”

BanTom is really going all out to very, very slowly and painstakingly set the stage here, or as we call it, “killing as much time as humanly possible to avoid having to exert any effort at all or create a story anyone would actually want to read”. I’ve seen enough wry Mason/Cindy banter for ten lifetimes, just get to the f*cking fireworks factory already, dammit. And what the hell is the deal with this f*cking movie? What is it, “9 1/2 Weeks In Space” or something? It’s more like “9 1/2 Years”, amirite?