Tag: Crazy Harry

Ex-Sponged

Today’s “contemporary issue affecting young adults”? The high rate of turnover among comic book artists. I wonder if the artist is “leaving the book” because he’s sick of having to work with the deadline-averse Pete Robertini? In any event, it seems that Batiuk just realized that Crazy Harry, though he may look like it now, was not born in the 1940’s, and has updated young Harold’s appearance (compare with this strip from 2010).

Leeese-ter Eggs

Link To Today’s Strip

OK, color me baffled.  I have no idea what THIS is supposed to be but that last panel is definitely shudder-inducing for a whole wide variety of reasons. Lisa is back and this time, it’s with a vengeance! Seriously though, having her suddenly popping up all over the place again is definitely not a good sign. In all likelihood, this will merely be some drippy Lisa sap aimed at whatever lucky gal managed to reel in Dick Face after her very tragic drawn-out death, but then again you never know with this BanTom guy.  And hopefully the “For Les” DVD features Lisa explicitly telling Les that he is under no circumstances to ever write a book about her, as THAT would be funny. Which of course means that you can safely rule it out.

Why doesn’t he just tell her what’s on the stupid tapes instead of being all weird and cryptic about it? What the hell are “practice tapes”? WHOSE “senior year tape”, Summer’s or Lisa’s? I guess it’s supposed to be for Summer, but was a separate tape for each year of college really necessary? Seems like overkill and honestly, a bit domineering too. I wonder how long they go on for? Does she cover the bases right up to retirement? When he first introduced these VHS tapes I thought oh no, he can conceivably mine these tapes for Lisa material forever and damned if it isn’t happening right now.

But all this idiocy is totally overshadowed by Batiuk’s greatest artistic achievement in quite a long time: that disembodied, lifeless Summer head with the AV cables sticking out of her neck. They really should be connected to a copy of “Lisa’s Story”, as it IS the only thing keeping her alive right now. But nonetheless, it’s a chilling image.

Pant-a-losers

He’s been spending a lot of time in the past, Batiuk has, dating to this past spring when Les got yoked into being reunion chairman. The reunion committee meetings reacquainted us with Junebug and Barry Balederman, and set the stage for a Lisa tribute. The reunion itself of course was the setting for the time pool silliness, in which the Act I cast were trotted out to meet their present-day counterparts (uh, sorry Lisa!). We’ve had a couple Sophmoric Sightings sightings. And speaking of sightings, we saw Les sharing the park bench again with Lisa’s ghost. And speaking of Lisa, we’ve once again dragged out those damned VHS tapes , this time to bake ’em and digitize ’em and preserve ’em for. Ever.

Along the way, Batiuk has of late altered his visual shorthand: the flashback scenes retain their photo album corners but are in full color instead of washed out sepia. Like the central triptych of today’s strip, which offers a perfectly passable gag and which for all we know is a redraw of a published strip from that era. Compare and contrast Coach Jockstrap’s humorous, deadpan style with that of his protege Coach Bushka, who harangues his players with Crankshaftian malaprops.

So Crazy in Glove

Looks like His Craziness is tackling the Digital Lisa project starting with Volume One, Tape One: the Lisa we see onscreen still looks pretty hale and hearty. “I want you to have these so you’ll remember me…” Because if I don’t spend huge chunks of the precious time I have left on this earth delivering rambling lectures into a camcorder, I’ll be forgotten?

File this whole setup under “Batiuk Aims for Heartwarming and Hits Creepy.” Harry’s face is wayyy too close to the monitor in panel one, perchance to appreciate the enhanced quality of his baked videotape. And the white gloves, what’s he slipping these on for? “This calls for white gloves! And some lube…”