As long as author avatars are popping into today’s strip…
Shoving the temples of your glasses INTO your ears is painful. Worst of all, you can still hear these two ding dongs when they talk. Would not recommend.
Durwood has a pretty poor grasp of economics for the holder of an alleged MBA… but look, if you really want, I’ll grant that the loopy and incredibly fictional economy of the Batiukverse means that Silver Age Omnibus books are such tremendous demand that Durwood’s Catch-22 makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is that quite literally yesterday we were told that these fancy comic books couldn’t be shipped on time due to climage damate. Now the blame rests with the Pandemic/COVID/Supply Chain Issues/Amazon/Internet/Inflation (oops, we’re not yet a year out on that last one filling up the column inches, check back next summer when inflation somehow closes Montoni’s again)? Make up your mind TB Batton!
Today’s strip concludes (we hope and pray and hope and wish) this latest visit from the Ghost of Distress Past. Her Royal Wryness. The VHSaint herself.
Special thanks go out to Summer for being a prop with no impact on the story whatsoever, she has already collected her prize of appearing in a full 3 panel strip this week (panels will not necessarily be consecutive).
Special thanks also go out to Les for having such an insatiable ego and such milquetoast friends and family that he will continue to receive the unearned praise he has been given for decades now.
And extra special thanks go out to Crazy Harry, who demanded nothing but 18 panels of our precious time in return for his brilliant idea of pretending Isaac Asimov invented the concept of recording video using already obsolete technology.
On the subject of 18 panels (well, 16, thanks to a couple of 2 panel strips), this new Lisa tapes origin story actually takes up more column inches than the entire original origin story AND depiction of the recording of the tapes! That took just 16panels in fourstrips. For all its faults, Act II got to the point…
At the end of my two week turn at writing these posts, I feel as exhausted as Funky looks in today’s panel three. But before I make way for billytheskink, I get one more bite at the mottled, mealy apple that is FW. But what to make of this joke-free strip? Funky’s strategy to avoid negative attention is hollering loudly every time he makes a bad shot? Aside from the other four players on the tennis court, there appears to be nobody around to notice or care about his poor play. Do they know that the fat man’s name is not Dave, Hal, or Glenn?
William Thompson August 4, 2022 at 11:12 pm
I’m morbidly curious as to how Funky can get even more childish…
Even more embarrassing than childish: Funky’s coming off as an thrifty old pensioner. One could expect Ed Crankshaft or Funky’s dad Mort to make such a chintzy request. But we know Funky to be a man of sufficient means to buy all the stale cookies he wants. I suspect that Batiuk is channeling a line from his hero Woody Allen: “Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.” “Yeah, I know; and such small portions.”
Jeff M. August 4, 2022 at 3:06 pm
The speaker is *terrible*. If I went to an estate planning seminar and he started out with a sustained “Jack and Jill” metaphor, I’d be steamed, too. He sucks.
Doesn’t excuse Funky’s aggressive passive-aggressivity, though. Yesterday I thought Holly was doing an awkward facepalm, but in today’s panel 2 we see that she was tearing out her eyes in a fit of Funky-induced fremdschämen(hat tip Maxine of Arc). Seminar Guy in panel three is ready to give up the ghost, and assumes a crucifixion pose.