Tag: Hollywood

Hollywoo Stars And Celebrities

This is your captain SoSfDavidO speaking as we approach LAX, I’d like to warn you I’ll be your snarker for the next two weeks! In other words, comedy turbulence ahead!

It looks like the famous duo of Pete and Darin are flying “Back Home” in today’s strip to the Bojack Horseman multiverse where the Hollywood sign lost the D.

giphy

Yep, they’re a real power couple, aren’t they? Judging from the fact they’re practically sitting in each others laps and the classic, cheap pube-hair upholstery on their seats, I’d venture they’re flying coach.

But hey, they’re home! Darin makes no mention of the wife and baby, wherever those plot devices are. We’ll probably see them again at Thanksgiving and Christmas and only then. You can’t have them cramping these two genius’s lifestyles!

 

The Lost Weekend

Link to today’s offal.

So, apparently Starbuck Jones has another sidekick in addition to Jupiter Moon and Isaac the robot, apparently named Moon Mile Meek, and about whom we have heard nothing before this day.  Way to keep the quality control on high, there.  This seems to flatly contradict the advice Tom Batiuk was given (reprinted on his blog), about referring to characters by name, etc, so new readers are quickly brought up to speed.

I happen to agree with that, by the way.  While there are certainly ways to make it really awkward (“Miss Jameson, you may be the best-selling mystery author of all time, but even I, your agent, don’t know why you need to spend a night in a haunted house!”), I’ve seen movies where the lead character wasn’t given a name until halfway though the movie.  It’s nice to know who the characters are, so when they’re not around and someone refers to them, you can say “Oh, that guy.  That cartoonist guy who draws that dull strip.”

So, this Moon Mile Meek might be anyone.  Perhaps on your way home someone will pass you in the dark, and you will never know it, for they will be from outer space, and their name will be Moon Mile Meek!  Can you prove that it didn’t happen?

At any rate, or rather because of, we have today’s thing.   Those characters in panel one are really poorly drawn–I mean, that is some seriously bad artwork, but…no matter, for we’re off to Nostalgia Park.  See, it’s funny because the boss is a fat stupid guy, and the artists are all like “Whoa” because they have to make a space comic in just a couple of days.  You can start slapping your knees…now.

Actually, I don’t see how the Deflated Due have a problem here.  They can just concoct a story where Starbuck, Moon Mile, Jupiter and Isaac are all sitting around the space office, space bitching because the space boss expects them to go out on space patrol, and they’d rather not.  They’d rather wax space nostalgic about the olden days when–and here’s the space twist–old TV movies were made and the staff totally hated working on them.

They hated working so much, they actually broke the space barrier and space hated it.

The Jerks Who Irk

Link to today’s bilge.

It’s been said far too many times before.  Here are two clods given a once in a lifetime opportunity for a dream job, and all they can do is moan and bitch, bitch and moan.  The appropriate reaction from Mr. Toothpaste-Tube would be to say, “Okay, guys, we’ve had enough–if you can’t cooperate with us and produce something, if all you can do is smirk and make moronic remarks, we really don’t need you.  So get your stuff and get out.  And remember, you signed NDAs so don’t even think about posting anything online.  Prison hasn’t gotten any nicer, and don’t believe anyone who says a spell inside will build character.”  I’m sure that if Mason Jarr the Actor objected, he’d be told, “Okay, so you don’t want to be part of this franchise and want to go back to made-for-TV weepers.  That can be arranged.”  I’m sure Mason Jarr the Actor would suddenly remember what “professionalism” means.

You’d expect Pete and Darin to be interested in a title like that.  It’s no worse than a Marvel or Lucasfilm title.  It’s actually imaginative.  And, when your main claims to fame are The Amazing Mister Sponge and illustrating a Les Moore comic book, respectively, I don’t think you have the right to criticize the works of others.  Not by a long shot.

Seriously, these characters are infuriating.  Fortunately, Mr. Toothpaste-Tube is doing his voodoo mouth-twich in the last panel, and we can see both Darin and Pete withering to dust right before our eyes.

When a cartoonist is clearly tired of producing work, and would far rather day-dream about an imaginary comic-book company, it’s time for that cartoonist to seriously consider retiring.  Instead, what he does is create two characters–an “artist” and a “writer” so both jobs are represented–and give them the same disdain for work and longing for nostalgia.  I guess in the case of the characters, Bantom Comics is (or was) a real-life publisher, so at least they’re waxing nostalgic about things that actually happened.  Not that I think that’s any better; wasted effort is still wasted effort, no matter the inspiration.

The only thing of interest here is Mr. Toothpaste-Tube.  Really, that guy is just weirding me out.  He looks like Butt-head’s dad.

“Huh-huh, huh huh huh.  Producers are dumb.”

“Yeah, yeah.  Heh heh heh heh heh heh.  It’s like, they demand things of true artists.”

“Uh…what? Huh-huh, huh huh huh.”

“Ahhh…I dunno, Butt-head, you tell me.  Heh heh heh heh heh heh.”

Schlock Solid

Link To Today’s Strip

Wow, Cindy is actually given the chance to (gasp!) smile today AND she actually enjoys a brief flickering moment of (gasp!) security too as Mason reassures her that there’s no way he’s banging Marianne Winters because he’s already combined (chortle) their CD collections. It’s better than nothing, I suppose.

But the artwork today is really something else again. Mason strikes a Boy Lisa-esque pose in panel one, his unruly thinning hair bursting right into his dialog bubble. Then in panel two all rules of perspective go flying out the window as he futilely tries to keep his enormous freak head from falling off his body completely. Then in panel three we wrap things up with a wry smirk and a truly frightening hatchet-face straight from hell’s infernal depths. What a display.

But I can’t complain too much here. I mean sure, this idiotic story went absolutely nowhere, SJ is no closer to being finished (or started) than it was a year ago and it made no sense whatsoever, but he did manage to go one entire day without mentioning Cindy’s age, which is quite rare indeed.