Why does Tom Batiuk use these stupid sideways strips? While it makes less work for Ayers to draw them, it makes more work for the reader, and there’s never any reward for doing so.
Batiuk might say they make his strip unique, as no one else does this. That’s true–no other comic strip artist does this. The reason they don’t is very simple–it’s an idiotic idea that adds nothing, and subtracts a great deal. Much like an ermine violin, it’s an impractical thing to have. Here’s an idea: why not make up a completely new language for his characters, with no translations available? That would be unique, too. And it would save time for the reader, since he could just skip the whole thing and move on to Garfield.
I guess striving to be unique, even if that makes the strip more difficult, is his goal at this point. He certainly hasn’t been trying to make his characters interesting or his stories anything other than dull.
As for today’s entry, well…when I was in college, my father would arrange summer jobs for me between years. It was decent work, and it gave me some spending money. But he never did this during Christmas break, which is (I assume) why Summer and Keisha are there now. It seems like a rather mean trick to play on a kid.
One might argue that this gives Summer and Keisha some work skills, showing up on time, knowing your tasks, etc. Except I feel certain both of them have worked at Montoni’s, so they’d already have some idea of those things.
Any excuse to ruin someone’s holiday, I guess.
By the way, I refuse to believe the person “on the left” is Cayla. It doesn’t look anything like her.
Yet another instance of Batiuk’s famous one-year leadtime 
Getting the runaround
Did you know President Bill Clinton likes to jog? I sure didn’t, at least not until today’s strip… and when I say “today’s strip”, I mean “when he was first elected President”. Does TB think calling him “President Clinton” is not enough of an identifier for readers or did he just recently start watching a DVD box set of 1990s Saturday Night Live episodes?
What’s with all the Eeyores in the first panel? Funky just dialed up BILL CLINTON on a whim, got the former POTUS to answer directly, and was told by the man himself that he would help. Why is Rachel even questioning this?
Better yet, why am I questioning this? Any of this? It’s been a fool’s errand for decades.
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Tagged as 1/4 inch from reality, Adeela, Amicus Breef, An idiocy of Winkerbeans, cell phones, cellphone, delusional fantasies, deportation, enraging hair strands, exercise, Falling leaves, Funky, Funky Winkerbean, half-assed political commentary, Holly, hoodie, how things are NEVER done, immigration, leaves, Life is a dismal horror from which you can never escape, melting faces, mistaken identity, Montoni's, Montoni's logo, Montoni's T shirt, not how the world works, Now Funky, President Clinton, Rachel, sad-sackery, sheer idiocy, stupid, tags you never thought you'd use, technology, terrible artwork, the raptor claw in Holly's hair, this is all a horrible mistake, Wally, you have got to be f-ing kidding me