Nothing really surprising here, as Tom Batiuk takes one baby step at a time through this latest arc. To be fair, that’s how most continuity-based newspaper strips work–Newspaper Spider-Man moves at a pace that’s positively glacial. However, when your “action” consists of one sitting person joined by another, it is possible to move a little too slowly. You want people sitting on the edge of their seats, not sitting back and snoring softly in the afternoon sun.
I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t point out two pretty amazing things in today’s episode. In panel one, we have a small potted plant that is absolutely black–a darkness so complete that it seems no light can reflect from its shriveled, defeated leaves.
Not really that surprising, given that it has spent its lonely life in the Winkerbean household. But next to that, we have a tea-pot that has apparently phased part-way through the top of the shelf and is now embedded forever within the wood. There are some comic book characters who can do this, perhaps Tom Batiuk was thinking of them when he drew this.
Know what would have been an even bigger surprise? If she walked in through the window or the wall or the ceiling! That is one ultra-shitty slice of dialog right there, just laughably terrible. As is Cindy’s bizarre (and awfully condescending) wordplay about ladders and her stupid NYC apartment joke. Clunkier than a big bag of hammers and twice as stupid. You’d think that the guy “authoring” this thing would at least have the common decency to wait until he’s fully awake before he starts randomly filling in the word balloons with whatever gibberish comes to mind.
Son of Stuck Funky 