Tag: Emily

The Right to Hug Arms

Link to today’s strip

The internet has been a wonderful breeding ground for all kinds of new dialectical terminology. Whereas before we had things like Ockham’s Razor or Pascal’s Wager. Now we’ve got Godwin’s Law, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” The Bechdel Test, “Whether a work features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man.” And Poe’s Law, “Without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the parodied views.”

Here we have an inverse Poe’s Law. A sincere expression of a view so obviously exaggerated it is indistinguishable from parody.

Also. Is this all of the students who walked out? That must have been some editorial.

Did someone break the windows?

Link to today’s strip

No Les, for either one of them to be jokes, they would have to be funny. And kudos to all the commenters who wondered if Batiuk would remember far enough back to reference the machine gun. Turns out it was cardboard. What is funny is that bringing a fake gun to school these days is likely good enough to get you suspended. Ah, the good old days, when Batiuk still had the balls to use guns for humor.

There is something funny in this strip though. That kid carrying the ‘We’re Still Here” sign looks like an immigrant from another strip entirely. I’m guessing Archie. He’s either got freckles, acne, stubble, or a tiny tattoo of a flock of migrating geese on his cheek. That coat looks like he murdered Chewbacca to wear his pelt, and the orange scarf isn’t so much a fashion accessory as some terrible noose he’s broken free. He’s got a nose high and sharp enough to use as a can opener, pointy ears. And all of this with a receding hairline hiding under cowlick reminiscent of the infamous scene in “There’s Something About Mary.”

Forget everyone else in this strip. We should make it all about Cowlick from now on.

Random

Today’s strip features the two dippy Crankshaft girls in a phone-related joke intended to show just how stupid the two of them are. It succeeds on that level, I guess. Otherwise, it’s totally unrelated to anything else in the strip. I guess it’s remarkable in one sense that it shows their father, but I don’t know enough about their appearances in Crankshaft to know whether he’s ever been shown in the past. I think their mom showed up at some point.

Have at it!

Quiz Bowel

It is comics like today’s strip that remind me how good I have it. I’m not taking high school English from Les Moore. I never had to take high school English from Les Moore. It is as if he is intentionally trying to be the opposite of the teacher that successful people so often cite as the inspiration that got them to make something of their life. What a miserable experience in every single way this strip is.

Les’ senior students did poorly on their quiz last Monday and now his freshman students have done poorly on theirs… I see a common denominator here. I bet these students would too if Westview High had a math teacher.

Orchestra’s Witnesses

Another school levy must have failed, because Lefty is now soliciting Westview residents during the summer in today’s strip. I guess that sweet band turkey revenue was just not enough to cover the cost of new feathery hats, Dinkles brand shoes, and those things that marching band members wear over their shoes.

The financial situation must be really dire in the Westview school district, because the band has weathered at least a dozen failed levies. It has typically been the high school’s sacred cow. Nate probably shouldn’t have allowed Les to meet with parents back in May, which undoubtedly cost the school district whatever bit of support it might have had.

It almost makes me wonder: How many guitar and flute tunes are there anyways? How many do Emily and Amelia know? Is Lefty going to pull out and in of every driveway in Westview? Is every single person who answers their door in Westview over the age of 75? Did Lefty come up with the punny name for this scheme before coming up with the scheme itself?

OK, I know the answer to that last one…

And with that, I yield the keyboard to a towering figure in the annals of SoSF, the one and only DavidO. As always, I appreciate you all putting up with me for a couple weeks.