Tag: John

And the guy behind the counter sez “why the long box?”

Is today’s strip a clip show? Further examination reveals that none of the artwork in these panels is reused, but I had to double check, because this is the third day of the exact same conversation.

Cory continues to sell a mystery that we all stopped caring about after Tuesday’s haiku-legram read:

Cory sell comics
Looks bad but probably is
for decent purpose

I’m not sure why we need to receive this message every day. I guess it keeps Western Union in business.

All this time is not wasted, though. We do gain some insight into Cory’s life here, specifically about how little privacy he believes his mother will give him.

Heavy Lidded

*yawn*

Sorry about that. Today’s strip is, in fact, a thing. It’s a thing where stuff happens, technically, I think.

Cory continues to sell us on the mystery of why oh why he would sell his mother’s beloved collection of Starbuck Jones comics behind Holly’s back. This is day four of the sales job but I’ll let the redundancy slide because having to half-explain it to DSH serves a minor narrative purpose even if we’re all going “again?!”

Here’s my only real problem with today’s strip: why bring Bob Hope back from the dead if you are just going to give him a silent silhouette cameo in panel 3? I mean, not even he could make this material entertaining, but I’d at least appreciate it if TB let him try.

Like a restless wind inside a comic box

Big guest star get in today’s strip. Playing the role of Cory is Deimos, the potato-shaped second moon of Mars. TB clearly has friends high up in the IAU if he’s getting celestial bodies onto the set.

So… what else is happening?
– In a ringing endorsement of the quality of Starbuck Jones, Cory has never been more sure of anything he has ever done ever, than he is about his desire to sell these comic books.
– We also learn that this is NOT a complete collection, as I and others might have inferred, but that the first few issues are reprints from an archive book.
– Cory also drops the fact that Funky once owned Starbuck Jones #1 on the guy who knows that better than anyone. In fact, we were first introduced to Batom Comics and Starbuck Jones because DSH got behind on his rent during a bad month for Montoni’s back in 2010. Funky had to crack open the Montoni’s safe and sell his non-bagged, non-slabbed copy of issue #1 to save his shop AND DSH’s deadbeat hind parts in the process. It was OK, though, because Funky was never in to Starbuck Jones, only buing the comic because an old guy, who was actually his present self but badly injured in a car accident and hallucinating that he was his present self but in the Act I past, told him to do so.

Anyways, did DSH ever pay Funky back for covering for him? Or does he think helping Holly assemble the very collection Cory is now selling squares them?

In any event, today we have what I believe is the first conversation between two characters who Funky has been far too generous with (remember who covered for Cory’s theft at the Lisa walk). May as well have Les walk in for good measure…

Sorry, I didn’t really mean that.

Send band boxes, guns, and money

Today, DSH John suddenly appears, which is always unsettling. We can be grateful, however, that he has nothing to say, although he does smirk in the final panel.

BanTom favors us once again with unnatural dialog that exists only to introduce a pun. When Stephan Pastis does this in Pearls Before Swine, however, he builds elaborate chains of verbiage—so you know what’s coming, and the fun is in trying to anticipate the pun line.

The structure of today’s joke is much different. (To paraphrase the magnificent Alice from The Vicar of Dibley, and as a reminder, a joke is a story with a humorous climax.) Panel 1: Funky delivers the straight line, which contains the curious phrase “the band box is R.I.P.” Do people use R.I.P. as a synonym for dead in Ohio? If so, I haven’t heard it during my visits there. Anyway, he delivers the straight line: “Either the band box is R.I.P., or I bite the bullet and get it repaired.”

In Panel 2, in a case of premature jocularity, Crazy Harry delivers the punch line: “Biting the bullet would make you a very high-caliber person.”

And aye, here’s the rub: there’s still one more panel to fill. There has to be a second punch line, which I’ll not deign to reproduce here. And that utterly ruins the structure of the joke. Also, there’s smirking.

Trivia Train a’ pullin’ In

Link to today’s strip.

Well, it’s another Sunday time-waster starring Owen.  I recognize that’s a really redundant statement, but like that fetid chullo, there it is.

Tom Batiuk has some thoughts on the original King Kong, and he is of a mind to lecture us on its short-comings.

Let that thought sink in for a few minutes.

In preparation for today’s post, unlike Tom Batiuk, I actually sat down and watched King Kong (1933).  If you’ve never seen it…well, you probably know the plot anyway, but some of what I note below can be considered SPOILERS.

1. No one on the voyage knows they are looking for a giant ape.  Carl Denham has heard there’s “something” on Skull Island, and he knows it’s called “Kong,” but he doesn’t know what it is.

2. Furthermore, all he wants to do is photograph it.  That they end up capturing it is not the point of the voyage–that’s Denham’s last minute improvisation.  But Owen says “determined to capture” as if that was the goal.

3. Denham and crew do not see any dinosaurs “along the way.”  They don’t spot any dinosaurs until well after seeing Kong for the first time.  At this point, they’re trying to rescue Ann Darrow so they have other goals in mind than film-making or capturing animals.

3. The dinosaurs were not “small,” though some are slightly smaller than Kong (which still makes them pretty huge).  And they definitely don’t appear to be “a lot easier to capture” or easier to control.   They cause several deaths.  (Remarkably ghastly deaths for the time, too.)  Of all the dinosaurs in the film, only one can be considered “small” – a bear-sized beast that climbs up a vine in an attempt to menace John Driscoll.

These things effectively negate everything in today’s strip.

I try to keep from saying anything about Tom Batiuk personally in these posts…but this is shameful.  There are really only two explanations for this.  A – He wrote this based on vague memories of King Kong, or of the various remakes or sequels.   And he didn’t bother to watch the film again to confirm any of this.  That’s sheer laziness, especially with a year’s lead time.  B – He wrote this, then watched King Kong to see how clever and superior he was; he saw instead that he was King Wrong, but decided it didn’t matter, that no one in his audience would remember King Kong, and even if they did, they wouldn’t bother to watch it either and they’d think Tom Batiuk was some kind of film genius for poking holes in a masterpiece.  That’s sheer contempt.

I’m not sure which one is worse, to be honest.

That leads me to my final point about today’s strip –

4.  I’m not a psychiatrist, nor do I play one on television.  But the whole strip seems to be asking the question, “Why try for something unique and spectacular?  Aim for ‘good enough’ and that should be good enough.”    Why climb Mount Everest when you can climb the local dump instead?  Why go to the Moon when it’s much less dangerous to go to the mall?  Why use actual jokes and interesting characters in your comic strip, when you can just use fifth-rate puns and have people smirk to show they “get it”?

Oops…did I type that last one out loud?  Whoopsie.