Tag Archives: helmet

by | December 9, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Born To Be Mild

today

Once again, I’d like to sincerely thank all of our fantastic SoSF guest hosts, both past and present. The effort you all put into it didn’t not go unnoticed, no matter how awful the arc you got stuck with might have been. You were all anchors, lynch pins, vital cogs in the daily SoSF machine, and I’m going to miss dealing with all of you.

Sniff. The fact that Harley, which isn’t even his name, easily found work in a public school says plenty about the Westview Board Of Ed’s hiring practices, especially in the 1970s.

“Welcome to WHS, Mr. Gacy. Would you care to tell me a little something about yourself?”

“Well, I really like clowns.”

“Terrific! You’re hired! The mop and bucket are over there, and the children are that way!”

Some guy tells me his name is “Harley Davidson” and I’d be all like “yeah, and I’m Lamborghini Ferrari, nice to meet you”. The guy was literally running around “nudging” high school students for the purpose of having them breed. That aspect of this story is really downright creepy when you think about it. “I NEED to make the geek and the nebbish fornicate…but how??”. Shudder.

Great Moments In FW Arc Recap History

Sept. 15-27, 2014
Scapegoats Football! The team endure Bull’s haranguing on team picture day. Owen is pressed into service when the first the team mascot and then the ‘Goats’ wide receiver succumb to the flu, and scores a winning Westview touchdown in the unlikeliest of fashions.

Good ol’ Owen. At the time, it seemed highly, highly unlikely, but I’ve actually grown just a little nostalgic about Chullo Boy and his oily sidekick, Cody. I mean hey, at least they weren’t in their nineties, and had discernible personalities. Owen was kind of a dumb, greasy scumbag, and Cody was something of a pitiful pervert, which is a hell of a lot more than I could say about Flash or Phil or Ruby or Batton aka The Geriatric Patrol. It’s kind of hard to believe it was all that long ago. I don’t believe we ever saw Owen and Cody again after graduation, unless they popped up in the background of a Komix Korner arc or something. I wonder what became of them? I assume Owen is employed at a vape shop, while Cody is probably heavily into crypto and meme stocks. And Alex is surely employed at a seedy tattoo shop, somewhere on the edge of town, next to a massage parlor and, well, another vape shop. These are best-case scenarios, of course.

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by | December 4, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Nudge, Nudge, Say No More… Please

Hey folks, billytheskink here… I’m back for at least one more post so I can tag the ever-loving dickens out of today’s strip.

Lest we think Harley only takes agency and free will away from women, we learn today that he did the same to DSH and to the various members of the Westview High School class of ’92-’88-’78-’72 reunion committee. Since TB is looking back, let’s step into our own WABAC machine and see what exactly happened in the these two events that Harley interfered in.

First off…

Great Moments In FW Arc Recap History

November 19-December 20, 2012
An extended Crazy Harry arc begins. Harry explains to Donna his love of old comic books. The next day he walks into Montoni’s to inform Funky that USPS is shutting down the Westview Post Office and he’s out of a job. Harry decides he must sell off his beloved library, spending a week sorting and packing his books and his comics before schlepping them off to John, who offers Crazy Harry a job at the Komix Korner.

Granted, I cannot say what she was thinking, but back during this story arc, Donna never talked about leaving town. She didn’t do much of anything, really, except try to come on to Crazy while he moped about and spout off about how his political beliefs had changed with age. Also, is Harley admitting here that he “nudged” long-time Komix Korner employee Kevin out of existence to clear the way for DSH to hire Crazy? There are consequences to this time-meddling, Batiuk!

Now for the star flashback of the day…

We’re looking at August 21, 1993, when Les and Lisa reconnected at one of the incessant high school class reunions.

In the original strip, Les hung the moon for Lisa… in today’s flashback, he hung the “Westview Reunion” banner next to the moon.

Should we assume the committee back in 1993 (holding what was then a canonically a 5-year reunion) was the same cabal Les was drafted into replacing Cindy on in 2015: Cindy, Mary Sue Sweetwater, Junebug, who I think is Cindy’s frizzy-haired minion Carrie, and abdicated valedictorian Barry Balderman? Eh, why not? Barry wasn’t at this reunion, though, he had a cool job.

I’ll give Harley/TB this, his intervention into giving that crew Lisa’s Seattle address makes some level of sense as Lisa wasn’t close with ANY of those committee members (even nerdy Barry) and Les didn’t have her address until after he broke his hand punching Bull at the reunion for reasons that still defy explanation. In a rare moment of common sense, Lisa actually chided a deserving Les for still being stuck in high school. This moment passed quickly, though. Lisa was practically apologizing to Les for being upset even before dawn and the next week Bull was practically apologizing to Les for getting punched. What a time to be alive that was…

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by | November 29, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Custodious Interruptus

today

THIS is why he did this arc in the first place. It only exists so he could do that “custodian” gag! This explains everything, and it explains nothing. But I know how this guy thinks, and when he got this “custodian” idea, bells started ringing in his head and he started victory lapping around that studio of his. The whole thing was built around that one stupid joke. Sigh.

Great Moments in FW Arc Recap History

May 2-7, 2011
Les finally bangs Cayla.

May 8-21, 2011
Ann Apple calls Les to tell him that “Hollywood” wants to option Lisa’s Story. This sends Les into a panic as he imagines how “Hollywood” will desecrate his work. After a park bench consult with the ghost of his late wife, Les reluctantly agrees. Ann dismisses Les’ fears by telling him there’s virtually no chance the movie will ever get made.

May 22-29, 2011
Les and Cayla on the porch swing. Cayla interrupts Les’ “long thoughts” by uttering the words “I love you”. Les is unable to respond in kind, and after a long, awkward pause the two decide to “take a break”.

May 30-June 4, 2011
Cayla tells Linda that she and Les are through; Linda tells Bull, and Bull lets slip to Susan, who marches directly to Les’ classroom and blurts out the dreaded “I love you”. When Les (again) fails to respond in kind, Susan flees the scene.

June 5-12, 2011
Les confides in Funky and Crazy Harry about his love life. The friends react with disbelief that Les, whose inability to get a girl in high school is retold in a series of flashback vignettes, now has two women vying for his affection. Les takes umbrage at their teasing and storms out of Montoni’s. Funky shows up at Les’ porch to seek forgiveness.

June 13-July 2, 2011
Les calls Cayla to try to mend their relationship, but she is already on his sidewalk when he calls. She apologizes to Les (!). No sooner do the two exchange “I love you’s” than Keisha “crazies things up” by sending a pic of Susan kissing Les to her mom’s cell phone. Cayla buys Les’ explanation that it was not his fault. Back at Westview HS, the “kiss” photo has gone viral among the students. Principal Nate calls Les and Susan into his office, where Susan immediately takes the blame and voluntarily resigns. As she cleans out her belongings, Les halfheartedly attempts to talk Susan out of resigning, but she tells him she’s decided to make a “clean break from Westview”

Oh, if you weren’t around for this era of FW, consider yourself blessed, because the above represents TWO STRAIGHT MONTHS of solid Les. All Les, all the time, week after week after week. And there were four more weekly Les arcs in the two months that followed, with way more to come. The vitriol was pretty intense, I can tell you that. Les Moore, already the single most detestable character in the history of fiction at that point, forever cemented his legacy after this run. It was just unbearable. In my opinion, it may have marked Act III’s nadir, the point where it really bottomed out.

And, interestingly enough, the arc immediately before Les took over for TWO MONTHS was Boy Lisa’s less-than-triumphant return to Westview, after “this economy” forced him to flee his Big City MBA lifestyle and move in to his bio-step dad’s spare bedroom. The idea of moving back in with his actual parents, who were both still alive and well and living in Westview, was never mentioned. Of course, Les got Boy Lisa a job at Montoni’s, where he designed pizza apps and created the “breakfast pizza” craze that swept Westview for several panels. And Jessica, who was now his wife, was there too, kind of. Way more stuff used to happen back then, but at the time it seemed like nothing was happening, like how it is now. Maybe it was all just an illusion or something.

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by | November 28, 2022 · 10:30 pm

Stuck Inside of Westview with the Helmet Blues Again

If you’re going to write a time travel story, you either totally ignore all the possible, unintentional ramifications of transtemporal travel, or you make the story about those ramifications. Either way, doing so requires a fair amount of narrative skill. That is, at least make it entertaining enough so that hidebound literalists and beady-eyed nitpickers don’t feel compelled to tear it apart. Gosh, this arc is infuriating. Given his seemingly supernatural gifts, surely there was some way that Hedley could have gotten back the dreary magic helmet. He’s had over 40 years to do it! But noooooo, he was content to leave it in Donna’s possession, and now it’s disappeared (and how does he even know this?). As a result, he’s “stranded” in space and time, and, nothing against janitors, but it’s probably a pretty mundane existence for someone capable of time travel and mind control. But hey, at least the music’s good!

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by | November 27, 2022 · 10:29 pm

I Know Where He Can Find A Mind Exactly Like That

Link To The Strip

You know, the strip is drawing to a close, as is my beloved SoSF blog, and I really wish it didn’t have to be this way. It’d really be nice if we got a story that offered some kind of closure, or even a nostalgic “life goes on” clip show kind of thing, where we could chuckle at the gang and their various pitiful antics over the years. But, unfortunately, he threw whatever this is supposed to be together, so there’s nothing you can really do but marvel over how unbelievably terrible and stupid it is.

Impossible events (that they’re only talking about, mind you), wild incongruities, dialog that contradicts itself all over the place, awful artwork, it’s unquestionably one of the most terrible FW arcs I’ve ever seen. And it’s not even terrible in an astonishing way, like when Les saved Marianne from a fire. It’s just stupid. I mean sure, maybe this helmet nonsense will lead somewhere and we’ll all be like “wow, I can’t believe how that cat figured into the story!” but what are the odds?

My current guess is that the strip will end with Les asking Summer how her book is coming along. Summer will reply that it’s already finished. Then the last panel will show “The Complete FW” with a caption that says “Thanks For Reading…Stay Funky!”. This story isn’t going anywhere and nothing will happen, so right now that’s the most likely ending.

Great Moments In FW Arc Recap History

November 19-December 20, 2012

An extended Crazy Harry arc begins. Harry explains to Donna his love of old comic books. The next day he walks into Montoni’s to inform Funky that USPS is shutting down the Westview Post Office and he’s out of a job. Harry decides he must sell off his beloved library, spending a week sorting and packing his books and his comics before schlepping them off to John, who offers Crazy Harry a job at the Komix Korner.

Being a mailman was Crazy Harry’s entire post-high school identity, so OF COURSE Batiuk had to destroy it, as he’s often prone to do. I was shocked to discover that Crazy has been working as John’s Komix Korner lackey for TEN YEARS already, as I thought this happened far more recently than this. Time sure does fly. He just loved to torture these characters. He absolutely bludgeoned Funky and Wally for years on end, he had Dinkle go deaf, he had a trombone prodigy lose an arm, he had Bull lose his mind AND die, he crippled Fred Fairgood AND rectonned him into a philanderer for no reason whatsoever, and he stripped away whatever dignity Crazy had left (hint: not much), just for kicks. He’s a dark, dark character, that Batom. He obviously loves the idea of cruel fates befalling his characters, especially if they were popular or good at something in high school. It’s always been one of his weirdest traits.

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