Cliff exhibits his trademark blasé in today’s strip, though I remain quite unsure how that demeanor lends itself to gripping documentary film.
Did Cindy not tell Cliff what he was going to be filmed for before he sat down? I mean, sure, he’s old but he’s not senile, right? In any event, poor Cliff does look emaciated. His looming death is probably the reason that Cindy is frantically asking Jessica if she is filming.
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Honestly, I kinda dig the newspaper montage in the throwaway panel of today’s strip… such famous banners as the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Herald (known as the Herald-Express in the 40s), San Francisco Call (known as the Call-Bulletin in the 40s), and… uh, the Oxnard Daily Courier (known as the Press-Courier in the 40s). The “His Famous Smile Is Gone” headline is actually a pretty upper-middle shelf bit of stupidly maudlin 1940s newspapering. What I like ends there, though…
WILSON BELLOWS INKPOT?! Are you kidding me, Batiuk?! “Butter Brickle” was too silly a name, had to be changed to the essentially nonexistent surname “Brinkel”… but some William Randolph Hearst-Snidely Whiplash mash-up robber barron (oh, there’s a 1940s trope, not an 1890s one… no sir!) named “Bellows” AND “Inkpot” is kosher?
Why, that’s almost as asinine as Jessica, who was in the same high school class as her husband Durwood (born in 1986) comparing yellow newspaper journalism with modern online sensationalism as if she didn’t grow up with supermarket tabloids and Les Moore writing a book about her vapid TV host father’s murder. Almost…
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Today’s strip really does the “trial of the century” justice, all but finishing it up in two panels…
Really, though, “trial of the century” ain’t saying all that much. If the Batiukverse is anything like our own, this would be the one of dozens of “trials of the century”, even during its own 1940s-ish time period.
So is this what is complete of Cindy’s documentary so far? Is this a documentary that was already made about Brinkel, thus doing half of Cindy’s job for her? Did Jess just sleep through this whole week of strips and is just now waking up? Will we ever really find out? Do we really care? Does TB care?
(No, Yes, Probably, Not Likely, No, Absolutely Not)
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Ooooooooooooooo! Rumors! Swirling rumors! Each one far too interesting to be true or even explored in Funky Winkerbean. Enjoy them now, because today’s strip is probably the last time they will ever be mentioned.
It really is too bad too… the most interesting aspect of celebrity mystery deaths are the wacky conspiracy theories obsessively promoted by space cadets with more imagination than TB has ever had. They can be disgusting, demeaning, profiteering, and otherwise awful, but interesting they really so often are. Otherwise, this Brinkel story is just terribly sad… which I guess, to be fair, is TB’s wheelhouse. It’s a really boring wheelhouse.
In true Batiukverse fashion, the police are having to hold people back from attempting to join Valerie Pond in the back of that ambulance.
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Valerie Pond’s lifeless body is discovered in today’s strip by… Super Chicken?!
You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Val! Maybe set your stemware down before you go wrestling someone for a gun next tim… oh, sorry. I suppose it is too late for that. Brinkel wasn’t much for privacy either, his bedroom was open and his gun collection was accessible? Laughable negligence even if he was not guilty.
Have a happy 4th of July all you SOSFers! Don’t be like TB is with his story arcs, please be/travel/revel safe…
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TB is a master of “tell, don’t show”, a story-telling characteristic that seems like it might be a nearly serviceable way to set up a murder-mystery, as ill-suited as it is for comic strips. In today’s strip, however, he is employing the unusual technique of “show and tell explicitly in an unengaging way”. As I said yesterday, subtlety is dead in the Batiukverse. Now we’re just playing out the week(s) to find out if these filmstrip-bordered panels are Cindy’s in-production documentary, a documentary that Cindy and Jessica are watching, or a procrastinating fever dream that even Pete and Durwood would “stand in line” for.
I must admit, though, I do like Hagar The Horrible there in panel 3 and his Petri dish stemware. Looks like it holds nearly one whole ounce!
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Panel 1 in today’s strip is brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.
A remarkable number of partygoers, including Brinkel himself, apparently failed to understand the “masque” part of masquerade… and how embarrassing, two other heavyset guys showed up not only dressed as the same character, but in the exact same costume as Brinkel. Brinkel and two other schlubs dressing as Pagliacci, the clown in an opera about a comic actor who murders an actress, to a masquerade ball costume party where a comic actor allegedly murders an actress was rumored to be more than a coincidence because subtlety’s funeral was last week and TB was a pallbearer.
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