SosfdavidO here, and ooh, look who’s being soooo coy in today’s strip not showing the face of the random weirdo wandering around the high school football game by himself.
Are we readers waiting for a payoff? Because unless he turns around to reveal Hannibal Lecter it’s going to be a letdown. But let’s keep padding this story out because we’ve got a whole damn week to fill
SosfDavidO here! And we’re kicking off this week’s arc with a mysterious stranger! Who could it be in today’s teaser? More importantly, does anyone care? It could be any one of the 21,836 characters that have popped into Westview in the past 40+ years or it could be a retconned character pulled out of thin air. Les’s brother Stanley! Sure, why not?
A couple of Batiuk’s pet themes inform today’s strip. There’s the setup and punchline: an admirer shares with his hero how hero’s advice inspired and influenced his life; to which said hero responds with disbelief that someone was dumb enough to actually take that advice to heart. It wasn’t funny when he used it last summer and it hasn’t gotten funnier since. But hey, recycled gags are to be expected in a comic strip spanning nearly a half-century. Let us save our groans for the way Batiuk retcons Darin’s—and his own—career.
Except for a brief cameo in 2009, we didn’t catch up with Darin until he showed up at the Taj Moore Hal with Jess in April 2011, unemployed and homeless “staying with some friends.” He spent the next three years as a manager slash mobile app developer at Montoni’s, before getting sucked up in the Starbuck Jones Hollywood vortex. Before all that, we’re told he was a “talented MBA.” So we either missed this whole New York chapter of Darin’s career, or he’s just blowing smoke up Phil’s ass. But we can think of another young man from Ohio who “went to New York to make [his] stand”…and was shown the door by DC and Marvel. If only he’d followed Phil Holt’s advice!
SoSfDavidO here! Puns are supposed to make you groan. Is there even a pun in today’s strip?
This is just awful writing. This, what you’re reading, and today’s Winkerbean. How many story arcs are still being juggled and we get a throw-away strip like this? Funky looks bored as hell but he’s probably long-since fused with the couch and couldn’t leave if he wanted to.
Bull can’t even manage to look pleased by the Big Reveal in today’s strip. If the artist was looking for stunned, it came across as only slightly interested instead.
Son of Stuck Funky 
