hoodie – Page 18 – Son of Stuck Funky

That's What Unfriends are For

So the gag gifts from yesterday were merely a setup for the “real” “present”, which Summer brandishes close enough to Darin’s face to cause him to flinch: “A birthday video that Lisa made for you.” And yes, it’s awkward hearing Summer reference her sainted mother by her first name, but it would be more awkward to have her say “a birthday video that my mom…um, our mom…my biological, uh, your biological mother…”, especially with the woman who actually raised Boy Lisa standing nearby.

All that aside: today’s punchline is actually cute and funny: Darin delivers a gentle zinger to his age-shifting adoptive parents, and Ann doesn’t miss a beat. Well played (for once), Mr. Batiuk.

Delivering Darin

Happy birthday, dear Darin. In your honor, TB is showcasing his full array of fancy, non-hand drawn visual effects:

Panel 1: whenever an image is displayed on a screen or is behind glass, it must be faded and have highlights streaking across it (and what does today’s panel 1 have to do with the rest of the strip? ).
Panel 2: when lit candles are depicted, apply a glowing effect to suggest an arc welder’s blinding glare.
Panel 4: When depicting past events, if photo-album corners are not used, make the colors even more washed-out and muddy than usual, and apply halftone dots over all.

Bonus (hand-drawn) visual effect: check out how Darin’s adoptive dad Fred Fairgood ages about twenty years between panels 2 and 5!

Pie 'n' Cry

Les continues to distinguish himself as Westview’s, nay, Ohio’s…hell, the world’s most clueless jackass. He decides to “cheer up” Summer and Keisha by bringing them to Montoni’s. The girls stare at their pizza in disgust while Cayla absently fingers a blemish on her chin. I’m sure that the next stop is Les’ favorite park bench.

What Moore Can I Say?

I like how Les doesn’t just look through the window as Summer shoots baskets in the driveway; he has to surreptitiously peer from behind a curtain. Finally he makes his presence known and attempts to engage his “kiddo” in some father-daughter chat, offering a baseball analogy to his hoops-dreamin’ daughter. Way to rebound, Les. Try not to show your fear of the ball!

Punchlines? There should be an app for that.

The end of summer means hauling the outside patio furniture down into the basement (unless they do this every evening for some weird reason) and gives us a chance to see what cruel ravages dementia has wrought upon poor ol’ Tony, who, by even conservative guesses, must be pushing 80 by now. Thankfully, the time jump was much kinder to older characters like Dinkle and Tony than it was to Funky. A halfhearted attempt at humor is made, punctuated by a chime-in from the new employee at Montoni’s, who appears to be baked off of his ass.

Oh wait, that’s Summer,who lives with Les, goes to the same school Les teaches at, and works at the same greasy pizza dump he manages.

I know they say running away never solves anything but whoever said that obviously never spent any time in Westview.

Meanwhile, Tony, sliding comically into full blown dementia, complains that Darwin confused him with all of his technical gobbly-gook talk about application programming, probably in a desperate attempt to justify his salary, to which one thinks; hey, boy wonder, if you can’t explain what the hell you’re doing to the average layman then you’re probably not a very good MBA.