Tag: Darin

Auctioneer-ring

Rusty
April 15, 2016 at 8:05 am
So….what’s happening with the decoder ring? Why show that yesterday?

Well, I guess it was so he could show it again today, being sold (and bought) on “Fleabay”, which, as it turns out, exists in real life and appears to be a desperately poor man’s eBay–it’s a dot net, not even dot com for cryin’ out loud. A more puzzling question is, with his rent paid for a year and any financial problems likely resolved for the rest of his days,  why must Cliff continue selling off his last few Starbuck Jones mementoes?

A Bizarre, Pointless Interlude on the Road to Nowhere

Their Conradian quest to locate Cliff Anger complete, the Starbuck Jones dream team rush back to… Montoni’s? Th’ hell? A month ago they were tasked with scripting and storyboarding a sequel, to be shot concurrently with the feature they were already working on. Did this development lead to the boys working even harder and longer? Nope: Pete proceeded to have another of his Batom flashbacks, which was followed by a road trip to Ohio, not to Cleveland to scout locations for the story’s origin scenes, but to Centerville for a screening of the obscure SJ serial. They followed this with another trip yet further east to locate the serial’s obscure leading man. Anyway, the upside here is that mopey Pete is looking and acting positively chipper!

Look Back in Anger

It speaks to the drawn out pacing of this comic strip that today’s strip could seamlessly follow last week’s, completely doing away with Cindy’s fire escape escapade. I’m not an avid Mary Worth reader but I imagine the same thing must happen over there a lot.

A cursory search of Grandpa Google for the phrase “grandpa google” reveals that nobody except Pete and Tom Batiuk actually call Google that, so into the Batiuktionary it goes. A good gag would have had cranky old Cliff reply to Pete “Who are you callin’ Grandpa?” But clearly this is one internet savvy old man. He’s used the web to move enough SJ collectibles to create a trail that has led these strangers hundreds of miles to find him. What little inventory he has left fits in an old suitcase: a raygun, rocketship, some action figures (and were “action figures” even a thing back in the days of serials? Boys didn’t play with dolls until G.I. Joe), along with a rather intriguing “coloring book” whose cover will probably serve as next Sunday’s entire strip.

I…D…U…L…L!

HAnzMFG here, looking at today’s strip, and wondering: Does Tom Batiuk ever actually read aloud what he writes for dialog? Does it really count as a pun if you just slowly spell out a homophone? If an inoffensive “joke” is uttered in an old guy’s apartment and nobody smirks at it, was it even told?

Alas, we don’t even know if the cops have been called. Cindy happily introduces herself as if nothing’s unusual about harassing and entering an old man’s apartment via window after initially being denied entry at the front door.

But thank you, Cindy, for at last cutting to the chase, and sparing the long story of Buddyblogs and fading beauty and absurd discriminatory workplace firings. We’re here for what’s really important: the story of an old B-movie actor, who is possibly going to be press-ganged into Stan Lee-ing in an equally bad remake. Excelsior!

“I…D…L…E…?”…

Horsehead_Facepalm

Over a Cliff

HeyItsDave
March 29, 2016 at 11:15 pm
Gosh, if only there was a searchable database of movies available on the internet!

$$$WESTVIEW ONCOLOGIST$$$
March 31, 2016 at 1:07 pm
I know this has been said before, but a quick google search could probably confirm whether Cliff Anger is dead or not…

Partial credit is due, I guess: the gang has managed to use “that internet thing” to get a potential lead in their search for Cliff Anger. Not via IMDb, nor Wikipedia, nor the Google; any of which might provide fairly reliable info as to old Cliff’s status and whereabouts. But—hello, what’s this?— someone’s selling off a cache of SJ memorabilia on eBay or Craigslist. Perfectly logical, then, to assume that this mysterious seller would be the man himself, and reason enough for three people to fly to New York to go looking for the guy.