Tag: Jessica

Charity Case for Second Base

Link to today’s strip

Hello Funkysnark Fans! Comic Book Harriet here. And I am soooo honored to be with you this week! This is my first time driving the bus! But as long as I don’t go careening off any cliffs like a drunk on prom night, I think we should be okay.

And for my first strip we have an almost ‘Mark Trail’ set up, with a building cheerfully spouting expository dialogue. I do have to applaud the scene setting in the first panel. We know we’re in Beverly Hills because a vapid looking, overly skinny, socialite, in a back-exposing top has wandered into traffic and is about to get mowed down by a blue Porsche. It could use some topical Hollywood harassment, but these strips are written months in advance.

Boy Lisa, and the person who exists so Boy Lisa has someone to talk to when Droopy Eyes McSadWriter isn’t around, are gearing up for the only thing that really matters in Funkyverse: Comic Book Cancer (Charity Action).

I am totally baffled by Mrs. Flowers in The Attic saying the title of the auction as ‘Covers for the Cure.’ It seems to be followed by BoyLisa suddenly realizing they forgot to promote this event. Or maybe that ‘Covers for the Cure’ would be a better promotion than whatever they chose. Which is probably something like’ Starbuck Saves Second Base!’ But why would the young Miss Darling say it in the first place if it wasn’t the title of the event?

Are you excited for a week of fictional strips that serve as cheap advertising for a real life auction for a real life charity that honors the tragic death of a fictional character? Because I sure as heck am!

Do Ya Think I’m Altruistic, Baby?

Link To Today’s Strip

No preview…stay tuned. My guess: Boy Lisa drops by one of Les’ “Lisa Trilogy” book signings to drop off the Batom Comics covers for the big “Lisa’s Legacy” cancer charity auction while wearing a Kent State sweatshirt and everything at long last comes full circle.

UPDATE: There’s a lot of information packed into this little gem. I got the impression that Phil was bitter and angry, mainly by how bitter and angry he was acting, but today Boy Lisa verifies it. What a surprise, as the usual one-shot FW character is normally all full of rainbows and light and all.

Then things take a typically sappy turn as Darin’s Lisa “gosh darn helping people” gene kicks into overdrive which, strangely enough, sends Jessica into another craven display of wanton desire, this time sexual instead of financial. Man, this woman is just a ball of “help me I never signed up for this” energy, isn’t she?

Better By You, Better Than Me

Link To Today’s Strip

Speaking for myself, Boy Lisa’s annoying insistence on referring to Lisa as his “mom” is nothing short of infuriating. Lisa was not Darin’s “mom”, his mother is named Ann and she’s currently back in Westview caring for his father Fred, who suffered a stroke on the crapper a few years back. Let me tell you, the way he took his misery knife and carved up those two characters was one of the cruelest things he’s done in Act III and all of it after Ann single-handedly scored Summer her championship too. The stroke, the loveless sham marriage full of unfulfilled dreams, the weird half-sister, Darin’s sudden embrace of Saint Lisa as his “mom”…he went all-out on the Fairgoods.

BanTom’s barely-disguised disdain for adoption in general aside, what a laughable piece of claptrap this is. Sure, this husband, father of a young child and sole provider has a hefty windfall plop right into his lap and his first thought is Lisa…come on already, Tom, knock it the f*ck off.

WorthJess Gesture

Link To Today’s Strip

No preview today…deal with it. My best guess: it’ll continue to feature the perpetually useless Boy Lisa and his equally annoying pal Pete slobbering over those stupid Starbuck Jones covers that no one on earth cared about as recently as a day ago. The history of SJ is so convoluted at this point it’s beyond rational explanation anyway, so sure, the covers are actually rare national treasures now. Whatever.

Update: Phil Holt died for these jerk-offs? A completely disinterested Jessica (who could blame her at this point) yawns at the garbage her husband keeps dragging into the house. Then upon realizing that Darin’s latest comic book crap could possibly generate a nice cash windfall for herself, she lights up in one of the more grotesque displays of sheer wanton greed I’ve seen in this comic strip since, well, since yesterday, when Pete actually expressed envy over not receiving a dead man’s possessions. What the f*ck is wrong with these people?

Shooting Gallery

Today’s strip

Greetings, folks, BChasm temporarily in the captain’s chair for the next little while.  What’s this?!  The viewscreen shows a sea of hostiles–ready photon torpedoes!   We must annihilate this threat before it spreads across the galaxy!

I’m going to skip over Mason’s “movie we filmed here,” comment, because while I don’t think any of the film was shot in Centerville, I honestly don’t remember the “school bus drives into shot” bit well enough, and–Tales to Astonish–I have no desire to look and see.  So I’ll give him that.

What else?  Well, we’ve got a crowd shot of almost everyone, including Les–which sets our Les Watch back to zero, damn it.  At least he’s not saying anything, and is both poorly drawn and partly covered by a word balloon.  Funny, though, I’d have expected both Comic Book John and Imbecilic Harry to be there, but I guess they got their exposure in at Comic Con, so no need to feature them any longer.  But who is that between Jim KibblesNBits and Marianne?  It looks like they flew Marianne’s mother out there after all!  I guess?

The fact that so many of the cast and crew are in the audience–and sitting right up front, too–makes me wonder if Tom Batiuk believes that the first time anyone involved with a movie actually gets to see the finished film is at the premier.  In the real world, the director would have seen the film dozens of times by now, and there’s almost always a screening for the cast and crew.  So all these people would be backstage, or at the back of the hall, gauging audience reaction–pacing, room for laughs, people getting bored at certain parts, and so on–and looking for “oohs” and “aahs” for the cast members.

But not in the fantasy land that is the Funkyverse.  Here, everything happens the way a five year old imagines that it happens–it’s all just magic, and friendship, and comic books and pizza, and it works every time!  In a way, that sounds like an attractive world…for a few minutes.  But after those few minutes, I’d want something of substance, something that would stir the imagination rather than just “be” everything forever.

Poorly thought-out as the Lisa stuff is, it’s at least an attempt to address adult concerns–something that a comic strip aimed at “contemporary problems of young people” should attempt more often.  Because I’m pretty sure the contemporary problems of young people aren’t that they wish there were more comic-book movies.