Tag: Darin

Meeting at Montoni's

So having spent the week hectoring her husband to meet with his absent “bio-dad”, Jessica suddenly seems filled with dread at having to come along with him. Perhaps she knows Frankie’s history after all? Or maybe she’s terrified at the prospect of meeting someone who’s escaped from a fictional prison dimension!

TheDiva
May 16, 2013 at 11:23 pm
PROTIP TO TOM BATIUK: The phrase “talking out of the side of one’s mouth” is not meant to be a physical description.

Yeah, Darin’s smirking so hard in panel 3 that his mouth appears to be trying to escape to the back of his head.

It's Durwood

Charles
May 16, 2013 at 6:32 pm

All this has taken place this week, and yet, what’s the result?

Frankie: Wanna talk, son?
Darin: No.

(After this week of treading water and worthless strips, reinforcing negative impressions of both Darin and Jessica):

Frankie: Wanna talk, son?
Darin: Yes.

Gyre
May 16, 2013 at 4:06 pm
“Give bio-dad a call”? “bio-dad”?

I get that they were trying to save space, but if that’s all then why not just have Darin refer to him by his actual name. That would be a great way to show the distance between the two of them.

Or how about this: have “Bio-Dad” refer to Darin by the wrong name, thus tipping off the reader (if any still need to be tipped off) that Frankie’s motives are less than altruistic? Such a slip-up might be plausible if Frankie called him “Derwin” or “Aaron” or something that has more in common with his real name than just the first initial. Not to mention that Frankie seems to have gone to the trouble of learning everything about everybody in town: it’s unlikely that he’d carelessly misremember the name of his mark.

Looking on, of course, is Lenny, Frank Pierce’s partner in whatever scam they’re trying to run here.

Love and "Marraige"

April 2008

Again today we have Blonde and Blonder acting like a couple of newlyweds when we’ve got proof, proof, people, that these high-school sweethearts tied the knot eleven years ago. It feels not so much like a willful retcon as it does that Batiuk settles for just making his puppets dance and say cute things and calling it “storytelling”.

I’ve “remixed” panel 2 to suggest a more natural dialogue between two people who’ve had 11 years to get used to the realities of “marraige” [sic]:

Jess Knows Best

Since Batiuk has so haphazardly laid the groundwork for his latest epic narrative, it’s up to us readers to try and connect the dots; for example, why Frankie knows so much about not only his estranged son Darin, but seemingly everyone else in Westview. As for how much Darin knows about his Bio-Dad®…

Charles
May 9, 2013 at 3:23 pm
It’s so easy to believe but still so appalling that Les simply used everyone’s real names in “Lisa’s Story” and passed on a lot of personal information on them that probably wasn’t relevant to…Lisa’s story.

But I’ll be willing to bet that Les doesn’t take any heat for this whatsoever. “Hey Blabbermouth, the state keeps adoption records sealed for a REASON, you know. But who cares about that, you have a book about your dead wife that must be written!” And, you know, it’s absolutely essential for that book to recount every single detail exactly as it happened, because it happened, you know.

Then I’ll assume that, if he didn’t hear it from Lisa herself upon their reunion, Shrimp Sauce learned from Les’ book that he’s the product of an unintended pregnancy (at best; pending the coming retcon). Yet Jessica insists that Frankie’s side of the story be heard. If Jessica never got around to reading Les’ book about her own father, it’s likely she hasn’t bothered to read Lisa’s (and Darin’s) Story either. No wonder she won’t let this go.