Double Sided Scooby Snack
February 8, 2020 at 12:12 pm
Uh oh! Well, so much for “Take your favorite guy to lunch day.”
Well, what do you know? Jessica is not about to let Darin off the hook for blowing his check on other comix artists’ work, and Darin reveals himself to be not completely clueless by picking up on her anger.
Well, if the “nice-sized” check wasn’t meant for Darin, then he and Jessica will have to settle for a check that is merely “nice.” Doesn’t matter anyway, since Darin immediately cops to having blown at least that amount on some other artists’ work. Tune in tomorrow when Chester turns to Darin and snatches the check from his hand. As commenter “Doghouse Reilly” reminded us on Wednesday, the artwork that Ruby sold was “commissioned recreations,” not her original work which her chauvinist pig bosses did not allow her to keep. Come to think of it, if they were commissioned, then by whom? What’s she doing selling them? Anyway, unless Darin sold off some old “Sophomoric Sightings” strips, any comic art that he’s produced was done as an employee of Atomik Komix, so he’s already received his reward.
Well, good for Ruby Lith. Like cracked actor Cliff Anger, Ruby’s another living Twentieth Century relic who held on into the Twenty-First long enough to finally garner some long overdue recognition. I hope her excitement over this check doesn’t trigger a coronary, which would look something like this:
I also hope Ruby’s allowing for inflation here, since her “original pay date” dates to around the Truman Era. Meanwhile, the expressions of escalating dismay on the faces of Darin and Jessica are the most satisfying thing we’ll see all week.
As if none of us saw this coming. Kitch Swoon and that nice-sized check of hers are not destined to fill Skyler’s college coffers. Y’know, why not have Monday’s strip showing the gallery owner arriving at Atomik Komix and laying the check on Ruby? Then Batiuk would have another five or six days to tell an actual story. But I understand her delivering the check in person, given what we know about the Postal Service in Westview. This is the story, folks: let’s take this week to set up those starry-eyed fortysomething Fairgood “kids” for a little disappointment and humiliation. Darin has to lean back so hard against Jessica’s pushing that it looks like she’s got him on a handtruck.
Why the hell must Haystack Hair “sidebar” with Darin when the dude was standing right there?!? Check out Jessica’s narrowed-eyed, conspiratorial posture in panel one: with her left hand hooking the crook of dopey Darin’s arm, and her right palm downward, fingers spread in the “keep this on the low” gesture. Always with the dollar signs in her eyes, this Jessica: recall her (short-lived) giddiness over the dough that Darin would make off auctioning those Phil Holt Batom covers. At least Jessica is looking out for their child’s future…unlike Darin, who without so much as consulting Jessica decreed that all that Phil Holt money should go to the Lisa’s Legacy fund (which I’m only hyperlinking here because they finally fixed it so the URL doesn’t redirect and give you a dire-sounding certificate error).
Son of Stuck Funky 
