Tag: Darin

Same Old Used to Be

Starbuck Jones…was the brainchild of Batom Comic’s first official writer Flash Freeman…Freeman had reached out to Phil Holt, an artist he had worked with from time to time on his various freelance jobs. Part illustrator, part cartoonist, Phil was the perfect artist for the job. His clean exciting style set the tone for the series right out of the gate.

“Batom Comics – The Untold History Chapter 3” at the official FW blog

So there’s the backstory, for those of you who understandably can’t be arsed to follow the 11-part (and counting) history of Batiuk’s cloud cuckoo land comics empire. I shall use the rest of my time to share some observations about Rick Burchett’s artwork. Where Batiuk often would eschew busy backgrounds in favor of a crosshatched, encroaching black void, RB likes to cram in lots of detail, and today’s strip is a case in point. The kid sitting for a caricature resembles bratty Angelica from Rugrats, but Phil depicts her, as he probably depicts everyone he draws, as a flying superhero. In the background, a kid inexplicably goes sailing ass-over-teakettle through the air.

As Chyron HR pointed out in the comments yesterday, Phil Holt bears a resemblance to legendary comics artist Jack Kirby, born one hundred years ago this month. According to Batom’s “history,” Phil drew the first SJ comic in 1954; he’d be in his mid-eighties by now, which makes his having to work kids’ parties a little depressing. But in a universe where a nonagenarian actor is feted at Comic Con and a WWII vet still drives a schoolbus, I suppose this is totally plausible.

Arty Party

Maddest of mad props to billytheskink for the last two weeks’ posting. Billy’s broad knowledge of FW canon is matched only by his skill with haiku.

Today we see Marianne Winters and Mason chatting on set…’scuse me…what? Oh! Sorry: it’s some other blue-black bobbed babe chatting up Darin at a kid’s party. “Jessica tells me you’re an artist.” There’s no need for Darin’s “self-defectating” response: she’s not impressed to meet a hotshot Hollywood storyboard ace, but rather, dismayed at having wasted money on a caricaturist when she could’ve pressed her party guest into service for free. This insult goes right over distracted Darin’s head: he’s regarding the sketch artist at work, and pondering things like “Why does his face look so weirdly specific? Why is a professional artist working with a yellow #2 school pencil? Why would a professional artist draw a professional artist working with a yellow #2 school pencil?”

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.