Tag: Jfff

Quo Tendimus?

spacemanspiff85
August 24, 2020 at 12:56 am
You know, if you sit on the ground coughing while a massive wall of fire comes towards, and you have your back to a cave that you know is there and actually came to visit, and you just sit there and wait for the fire to take you rather than running away from it, like, maybe, into the cave, I think you deserve what happens.

I’m beginning to suspect that, in his solo travels thru the Cali desert, Jff might’ve accidentally ingested some peyote. ‘Cause he is just trippin’ balls. Pretty much the state yours truly must have been in when first viewing The Phantom Empire. The frail, Benday-cheeked elder Jff seems quite apprehensive about being swept up in robot arms, while Jff’s boyhood alter ego eagerly throws his arms around the robot, which must feel like hugging ductwork.

A programming note: The comic for next Wednesday (and for every Wednesday going forward) will not drop until after midnight Eastern, so look for a placeholder post. Kyping the daily Funky strips in advance recently became harder to do; more about that when we roll into  September.

None Like It Hot

Maddest of mad props to ComicBookHarriet for her timely and courageous reporting on this wildfire that has ravaged a huge swath of southern California.

If I can ever replicate and distribute this font, I shall name this font Reckless Death Stunts.

OK: well, I sorta lied yesterday when I commented about having watched The Phantom Empire (heretoafter referred to as TPE) as part of a midnight show at the old Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey. There I may indeed have taken in an episode or two, mixed in with some choice Three Stooges shorts, wacky commercials, and Star Trek bloopers. But this was the late 1970’s, kids. And, blame the microdot I guess, but for the life of me I cannot recall a whole helluva lot about TPE. Do you suppose Tom Batiuk get turned on to The Phantom Empire as a  stoned young Kent Stater, maybe as part of a midnight show at the Agora? Or did he discover it as a striped shirted, balding young boy, much like the one he draws as Jff’s boyhood alter ego in today’s strip? So stressed out by the obtruding smoke and flame is Jeff that now his hallucination is having hallucinations. Come to think of it, back in May we had Funky hallucinating a robot while jogging. That’s kind of an odd thematic well to which to return. These humanoid, robotic apparitions, then,  will likely turn out to be in reality some abandoned movie gear that Jff spotted while hiking in.

Anyway, I never did watch my dollar store TPE DVD, and  I’m not about to YouTube all “Twelve Dazzling Chapters” (each between 20-30 minutes in length; the Wikipedia entry about TPE has a link to a 70-minute feature edited from the serial).  The Phantom Empire trailer that I’ve shared below makes the serial look much more like an oater than a sci fi thriller: more Roy Rogers than Buck Rogers, more Buffalo Bill Cody than Commander Cody. As you watch the trailer, be sure to savor the truly excellent typography of the title cards.

Passive Patricide

Link to today’s strip

Is there any character in this strip as thick-skulled as Mindy? She’s been standing outside the Bedbug Hotel with Pete long enough for Masone to drive from the Channel Island Harbor Marina (The nearest marina north along the coast from Malibu) to, judging by the view, the Hollywood foothills.

I know Comics Curmudgeon has been going nuts trying to parse out the geography of this arc, but here’s my take on it:

So, of course, given this map, it was entirely reasonable for Mindy and Pete to stand and wait for the minimum of two hours it would take Masone’s Starbuckmobile to drive BACK THROUGH THE FIRE to pick them up after dropping off Marianne and Les.

Only for Mindy to then remind her friends that her dad was hiking in Griffith Park.

Pete is smiling in relief in panel one, and suddenly worried in panel two. So unless he has the attention span of a goldfish, Mindy is only bringing this up now. And she seems at a complete loss as to what to do next.  So she’s going to let her fiancee and his pal decide if and how they should alert emergency personnel.  Or is she expecting them to go charging through the brushfire themselves?

Truly, dumb as a box of sponges. Because a box of rocks at least has some weight.

Today’s Preview Was Not Available for Preview

Surprise, today’s strip wasn’t available for preview. My guess is it’ll either be Jeff in the back of a taxi telling the driver he needs to be/just peed (possible “so that’s why the cab is yellow” gag), or Pete sitting on the beach with Mindy moaning about how he wishes he was with her dad instead.