Tag: lame wordplay

Clobberin’ Time


I gave myself a migraine trying to decipher the tin-eared dialogue in today’s strip. “There’s a couple of tick-tocks before class starts”? This is bully-speak? Sounds like baby talk. “Kick your butt off“? “Off” doesn’t follow “butt” in this construct, unless I’m “kicking your butt off the team”, or “off the bus”, etc. Never heard of anyone getting his “butt kicked off”. Oh, I see: this is setup for Cody’s retort: “No problem, I’ll just share yours.” Share his butt? ‘th hell?!?

And what skinny teenage nerd confidently cracks wise in response to a verbal threat, however clumsily it’s worded? This is the same tactic that teenage Les used with teenage Bull. Of course now we know that that wasn’t real bullying at all. Mr. Black Shirt Hatchet Face appears to be serious. Given his renown for “tackling serious real-life issues”, you’d expect that TB would at least attempt to treat bullying a little more thoughtfully. Instead he goes for “funny” but it just comes out “wrong”.

Dese Nuts

Oh, you just know that somewhere in Batiuk’s studio is a napkin, from Luigi’s of Akron, on which TB has jotted “idea for strip punchline: academia nuts!”

Tell me if reversing the order of panels doesn’t make it funnier:

Cayla, who’s been disparaging the team since the start of the season, decides she’s gonna lighten things up with her little nut gag. The “joke” goes over like a turd in a punchbowl, and she sheepishly puts away her bag o’ nuts, mumbling to herself while Les and Linda offer pitying glances.

One for the Books

Lots to be said about today’s strip, gang!

  • The red title text in panel one really stands out against the muddy, muted greens and pinkish browns of today’s panels.
  • TB casually drops into this otherwise run-of-the-mill, throwaway Sunday setpiece the fact that Pete  is moving back to the big city, nearly four years after he inexplicably moved back to Westview.
  • The name of this secondhand bookstore is sorta clever (certainly more clever than The Village Booksmith). Reminds me of a bar in Bayonne where I used to live that was called He’s Not Here.
  • TB sure has a thing for bookstores and their uncertain fate. In addition to the now-shuttered Booksmith, earlier this year Les recalled a now-demolished bookstore in Kent, Ohio (Les also shares Pete’s proclivity for “haunting” secondhand bookstores).
  • With his balloon head and scrawny neck, Bookstore Guy in the last panel really resembles South Park‘s Mr. Mackey, mmkay?