Tag: Darin

Fun-ky CancerCancer

SoSfDavidO here! Hmm, it appears that the word “fun” is being tossed around again in reference to Darin illustrating the long battle his mother had with the cancer that eventually killed her. Today’s strip is really a head-scratcher. Usually I’m in the “Ok, Tom, we get it, cancer sucks” crowd” but this week’s crop of strips have flipped around to make cancer seem like it has all the medical annoyance an impacted wisdom tooth.

On top of that, is any of this stuff even cleared with Les’s publisher? I assume Les doesn’t really own the rights fully to Lisa’s Story anymore since he sold the book. I’m sure this being Westview that things will all somehow work out but dumping this box of doodles on your publisher’s doorstep and expecting a book deal out of it seems like a long, long stretch.

Edit: Actually, it would appear that the “How Les Met Cayla” is what Darin has been illustrating this whole time. Sorry for the mixup! *slaps self!*

Cancerous Attitude

I guess drawing a comic about someone slowly dying of cancer is a lot of fun because from the looks of things in today’s strip Boy Wonder can’t get enough! If it’s not too much trouble, maybe Les can get crippling gout so we can have a comic about that, too.

Obviously, things get a bit meta here with the existing Lisa’s Legacy book existing within the comic. It’s amazing how fast this thing was crapped out compared to how long the book Les was working on and the yet-unmade movie is taking.

Hacks Headroom

I think there is some conversation or something happening in today’s strip, possibly involving former Cleveland mayor Dennis Kucinich. Sorry, I’ve been marveling at how these relatively small screens continue to capture most of Darin’s legume-like head rather than paying attention to whatever he and Kucinich are on about.

In other news, it’s Throwback Thursday!

What was happening in the Batiukverse 10 years ago today?
Wally, looking far too much like Act III Darin, tells Lefty he has decided to go back to Afghanistan after a single counseling session at the VA Hospital.

It’s clonely at the top

The video-conversation continues in today’s strip, with Durwood taking passive-aggressive swipes at his long-time pal. The “sponge clone” that Darin is busting Pete’s chops with, of course, was actually what Pete used to take The Amazing Mr. Sponge “to the top”. Of course, that is “to the top” of an industry whose best-seller nowadays typically moves less than half the volume of a mid-1960s issue of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen with all of its lunacy and bait-and-switch cover art.

Even so, “I came up with an idea that sold more copies of my writing” is pretty much the first thing I would put on my resume if I was an unemployed writer.

To Re-Pete This Message, Press 1

Despite his seeming disdain for most internet activity and his unabashed nostalgia for videotapes, compact discs, band boxes, and Space Invaders, TB seems to fully embrace one certain piece of modern technology, as we see again in today’s strip.

That technology, of course, is videoconferencing. TB LOVES to depict the technology of communicating face-to-face via screens that in the pre-Skype world of just a little more than a decade ago was accessible only to wealthy early adopters and Star Trek characters.