Tag: Crazy Harry

Little Old Lady Who?


Most
carelessly-rendered
neon sign ever.

Looks like Batiuk plans on letting the Kilimanjaro Saga unfold on an alternate-week basis…

Today we find ourselves in the familiar confines of Montoni’s. I always asssumed that the lettering in Montoni’s window was a neon sign, but the closeup in panel 2 reveals that the letters are not connected. Maybe they’re painted on, or maybe they’re those gummy window clings? Though that doesn’t explain how they light up.

“The Boss”, meanwhile, is finagling with the guy at the car dealership. Stress, strain, killer-shark issues, and two time jumps have beaten down our titular character to the point where he matter-of-factly renounces his very manhood, self-identifying as “a little old lady”.

The Three Faces of Crazy

In typical Westviewvian fashion, all of Les’ friends are offering unbidden and useless “help” with his Kilimanjaro conquest. First, self-styled personal trainer Bull shows up to whip Les’ pasty ass into shape. Today Crazy Harry offers to loan his precious collection of “comical books about Tarzan”. I think Crazy may have confused “Tarzan” and “Tanzania”. Look for Funky to send Les and Summer off with a shipping crate of freeze-dried Montoni’s pies to sustain them on the climb.

I’m sure you all recognize the delirious kid with the Tarzan comics swirling around his head as young Harold Klinghorn, pre-hat, pre-nickname and pre-drugs, back in those innocent times when his only “high” was Tarzan funnies. The Sunday-strip color gradients and shading do not make him any cuter. We recognize his teenage (and actually likeable) self in the little portrait in the banner. Would anyone not familiar with Funky Winkerbean see today’s comic and figure out that the boy, the kid in the hat, and the old geezer are the same person? Or that the two men talking went to high school together?

Con"Grads"ulations, Class of 2022–err, 2012?

Guest blogger DavidO here, reporting for duty for my last entry before passing the reins back to someone with much more talent than I, TFHackett!

Confusing, impossible to decipher time-jumps aside, Summer and Company (Aka, the nameless, faceless rest of her class) has finally graduated from high school!

Call me an ol’ softy but I can’t find too many faults with Sunday’s strip, aside from the smirk on Summer’s P1 baby picture. It’s actually rather well done and paced at a level that lends itself well to a one-shot Sunday strip.

Enjoy it, Snarkers. Dailies like this are far and few inbetween.

The Grim Gay Ghost

No sooner does the much-hyped Coming Gay Prom story get underway than we take a detour into “Sundays with Crazy Harry”-land. No wonder the United States Postal Service is on the brink of bankruptcy, with goldbricks like carrier Klinghorn on the payroll. I’ll overlook John’s improper grammar in panel 4, to focus on what I hope is the real gag today (because the punchline sucks, as usual): in the penultimate panel, John is expressing optimism about the state of his business; meanwhile he’s holding a comic book titled The Grim Ghost. Irony?

It gets better (hah!): Maybe TB is a little more clever than we give him credit for! A little more “komix” research turned up this factoid courtesy of Wikipedia:

An earlier and somewhat similar character called the Gay Ghost has since been named the Grim Ghost due to the modern connotations of the word “gay”.

Is Batiuk going meta on us? Naw…probably just a coinky-dink.

SoSF 2nd Anniversary Giveaway Announcement
Coming Tomorrow!

Quarant'anni di Montoni's

Finally, a special occasion that actually deserves to be celebrated at Montoni’s. The joint hasn’t been this packed since Darin discovered breakfast pizza. Everybody’s here…of course, Becky and Wally have to slave away back in the kitchen, and Khan’s been a persona non grata since opening up his own eatery nearly a year ago. Holly and Donna are in the same shot, proving they are not the same person; ditto Summer and Pete (wasn’t he leaving town?). Dead Skunk Head John and Bull are either gazing lovingly at one another or have just finished sharing a joint.