Tag: Comic-Con

Holt Rides in a Volt

Whatever else new artist Rick Burchett brings to this strip, he knows how to draw a realistic, modern looking car. And he can draw the occupants seated comfortably inside, not pressed up against the windshield. Good job!

While the artwork’s (marginally) improved, the writing hasn’t changed. Phil Holt is such a comics legend that he’s instantly recognizable; quite a feat for anyone not named Stan Lee. Yet he bitterly dismisses his life’s work as “just junk.” “Now there was this young fella back in the day, walked in off the street…’Tom’ something, ‘Tom…Batty-yuck’. From Ohio. Showed me his portfolio. Great stuff, much better then my work. Told ‘im thanks but no thanks! Shit, he’d have had my job!”

Of course it’s up to Darin, the high school newspaper comics legend, to cheer up Mr. Holt, and it seems to work. Hopefully he’ll omit the part about the Comic-Con attendee who called Phil’s namesake “an old-fashioned piece of junk.”

Sneezy ‘n Dopey

Hard to believe, but today’s strip is the first in over a month (a MONTH!) to be built around a sneezing blond man. That Comic-Con arc (or “crud”, I’m gonna start using crud) makes it seem like years…

I’m not a doctor, but Durwood, sick with a contagious disease he picked up at Comic-Con, attending a birthday party thick with toddlers and their developing immune systems seems like a bad idea. I guess Jessica can’t take Skyler because she has another engagement… Ha ha ha! Sorry, I crack myself up sometimes.

Thanks for sticking with me for another two weeks of Funky Winkerbean being especially Funky Winkerbean-y. El Jefe himself, TFHackett, takes the helm tomorrow. May his tenure be devoid of Starbuck Jones and Les (it won’t be, almost assuredly, but it would impolite not to wish so).

Decoder? I barely know her…

Tough luck, SOSFers. Not just because you’ve read today’s strip, but also because today’s strip is particularly rant-worthy and I may well be the weakest ranter on this site. I am sorry, I just cannot do it justice. I’ll lean on our commenters to give this strip what it deserves.

I do have an editorial comment, though, and it doesn’t involve Funky in a coma this time. Among the few printable things that have been said about this whole unending Starbuck Jones movie arc is that it is “wish fulfillment”. It is an apt description, of course, as nearly everything about Starbuck Jones comes across as what TB wishes would have happened to his own creations. However, there is no reason that wish fulfillment can’t be entertaining.

Sally Forth just spent a whole month at a (very) fictional Japanese movie monster theme park, something I’m sure unabashedly nerdy SF writer Francesco Marciuliano very much wishes was real. However, Marciuliano uses his fantasy to tell a story and crack jokes that are relatable to readers whether they are kaiju-obsessed or not. You may not know what a Gamera is, but you probably get jokes about taking family vacations and waiting in line at theme parks.

TB’s Starbuck Jones business, meanwhile, requires a tome of Batiuk blog posts and a glossary of Hollywood terms to understand, and a miracle to find entertaining. It seems to be perpetually patting itself on the back for being such a big deal in its own allegedly realistic universe, thrusting long-standing characters into Hollywood’s orbit for seemingly no reason other than to show that they are great enough to be involved in Starbuck Jones things.

I would say that my wish would be that we could leave Starbuck Jones, Hollywood, and the Valentine Theater behind… but that undoubtedly means more of Les. I can’t win. None of us can.

Dead Putz Society

Everyone is severely intoxicated in today’s strip, right? Those glasses everybody has been carrying around have surely been filled and emptied many times by now, yes?

Because I don’t really know how else to explain this. The exaggerated hand gestures, the jumping on tables, the applause, the addressing of a group of full-grown adults as “kids”… Heck, alcohol may not really be enough to explain this. Not even something as dumb as Funky still dreaming in a coma back in 2010 effectively covers this ridiculousness.

Butterfl-hio Effect

Today’s strip is a sobering reminder of just how tantalizingly close we came to completely avoiding the foul, intrusive neighbor that is the Starbuck Jones movie. If only Mason had never come to Ohio, none of this would have happened.

– Mason only came to Ohio, of course, because he met Les on the set of Lust For Lisa.
– Tempting as it is to pin this all on Les, he was only able to lure Mason to Ohio with Holly’s collection of “Starbuck Jones” comics.
– Holly’s “Starbuck Jones” collection only existed because Cory started it.
– Cory only started the collection because… well, Tom only knows that. Maybe something to do with his stepfather reading it when he was a kid…
– And Ohio is only a state because the British ceded it to the United States in the Treaty of Paris, which was only possible because the French ceded the Ohio Valley to the British after losing the French and Indian War.

“Fan” theory time:
Funky is still in a coma from that 2010 car wreck and everything that has happened since then has been a dream. It was immediately before the wreck when Starbuck Jones was first mentioned (Funky had to sell SJ issue #1 to cover Komix Korner’s overdue rent), everything else involving Starbuck Jones has occurred after the wreck. Also, think of all of the other outlandish things in this strip that have happened since that wreck, things that would have been unlikely before: the successful publication of Lisa’s Story and its national book tour and “Hollywood” chapters, Cayla’s appearance changes, Les’ love life, Cory becoming a soldier and a well-adjusted individual, Cindy comes crawling back to Ohio, Wally snags Rache and Buddy, Dick Tracy…

This theory is, of course, disgustingly unoriginal and incredibly stupid. But is it really worse than the alternative?