Jessica’s Father – Page 3 – Son of Stuck Funky

Die, Die, John Darling

Nope, this is NOT a parody strip. Once again, BatYam takes one of his demented little stories in a direction no one could have predicted. If you had told me last week that Boy Lisa would be handling the very gun used to murder John (Jessica’s father) Darling, I would have said “LOL yeah, sure, like the talking chimp could ever fire a gun”.

Whoops, got my FW handgun-centric story arcs all crossed up there. But anyway, yeah, Mitchell owns the ACTUAL MURDER WEAPON, which he keeps in a drawer in John Darling’s old TV desk. And, while rummaging around in that desk without asking for permission first, Boy Lisa (of all people) finds the gun and gets all queasy, which is to be expected, given his lineage and all. By God, man. This is twisted beyond belief, even by BatYam’s lofty standards. Every time you think you’ve seen it all with this guy, he just digs down deeper and blows your freaking mind.

And as much as we like to goof on the artwork and all, that look on Boy Lisa’s face in panel three is PERFECT. I made the EXACT SAME FACE when I first read this one. THAT is some flawless comic strip art right there.

Hey Is For Horses

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“Hey!”…that’s some mighty fine foreshadowing there, Pulitzer (nominee) Boy. As always, the master craftsman builds the suspense one panel at a time, very, very slowly, over the course of many days and weeks and sometimes even months. I sometimes think it would have been pretty cool if he’d have just made the entirety of Act III into one ultra-mega prestige arc, which he’d wrap up with a Saturday panel three word balloon full of wry expository dialog at some undetermined future date.

“A physical memento”…as opposed to what, a mental memento? A metaphysical memento? An ethereal memento? And again, if Mitchell is going to be so standoffish, why did he bother with letting them in to begin with? Is this a Midwestern thing, where you’re obliged to invite strangers into your home even if you’re all hostile toward them? We don’t really do that out here, back east.

Son Of A Batiuk!

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Give it up for spacemanspiff85 and everyone else who hosted since my last turn! 2022 has been a hundred miles of bad road to hoe, or whatever they say out there on the fertile Ohioian plains. I genuinely enjoyed learning all about various local Cleveland area TV hosts of the 1900s, as that was on my personal bucket list. It’s a lengthy list. Now on to today’s piece of crap.

Hey, that’s no way to talk about Tony. Yesterday, it appeared that perhaps BatYam was humanizing Mitchell a little bit, making him a little more sympathetic and relatable and such. But it didn’t take, as Mitchell is a full-on dick again today, snarling in psychotic collector’s rage over some idiotic John Darling (Jessica’s father) trinket he saw on Montoni’s wall. The look on his face there in panel two is WAY out of proportion to the dialog, but Batty does that a lot lately.

One thing he NEVER fails at, though, is ensuring that his little stories never make a lick of sense, right down to the tiniest, most insignificant details. For example: two weeks (!) ago, Flash and Chester were talking about Mitchell in hushed weirdo tones, like he was some sort of mythical recluse. Yet he frequents Montoni’s, too. How can both be true? I mean, Boy Lisa used to work at Montoni’s, in the breakfast pizza app development department. Surely he remembers the overweight comic book weirdo, and…oh. That’s right. Never mind.

Re: The “Crankshaft” Mason Jarre crossover thing. I tried, but I just can’t. Reading “Crankshaft” just cuts against my grain, and I can’t bring myself to do it. Feel free to discuss it freely, if you must. Trying to juggle THREE Batiuk strips is just way, way too much to ask of anyone.

. . . Who Was Murdered

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Surprise! Jessica is John’s daughter. Really, the first two strips could’ve been condensed into one single panel, where Jessica and Darin introduce themselves and Mitchell recognizes that she’s John’s daughter.

Honestly, I am a little creeped out that Mitchell immediately knows who Jessica is. I know this guy is obsessed with her dad and all, but immediately realizing who she is is a little off-putting to me.

I do kind of love Darin’s expression in the second panel. He looks like he’s either about to fall asleep or trying real hard to look cool.

He Also Owns Darling’s Drawers

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“He likes to collect things, so surely he’ll have John Darling memorabilia!” seems like a bit of a stretch to me, even by Westview logic. I would’ve liked a line about how Mitchell’s dad was a newscaster, or that Mitchell was comforted by watching the show after he quit Batom. Just something more than “he collects stuff, so he’ll have what you want”.

And that is quite the strange looking spaceship that Phil drew. If I didn’t know that’s what it was supposed to be, I really don’t think I’d ever be able to tell.