Les being a giant smug douche – Page 3

Infinite Recursion

You won’t believe Summer’s brilliant idea for a book! It’s not about Lisa! It’s about Westview! Which is about 70% Lisa by volume.

There are already enough books about Westview, Summer. They’re called The Complete Funky Winkerbean Volumes 1 through 12. Nobody buys or reads them.

Is Batiuk trying to be meta here? He’s already blurred the line between Lisa’s Story, the in-universe book Les wrote, and Lisa’s Story, the real-world book of Funky Winkerbean comic strips you can buy online for only $80.

Let’s see how meta this gets. Someday, Tom Batiuk will sit down to put together a future Complete Funky Winkerbean compilation, that will contain the “Summer wants to write a book about Westview” plotline. When he does this, he will be writing a book about Westview about writing a book about Westview.

And what if Summer’s book includes information about the many books that have been written by Westview residents? Most of them are about things that happened in Westview: Lisa’s death, Holly’s majorette career, Dinkle’s life story. So when Batiuk sits down to compile this future Complete Funky Winkerbean book, he will be writing a book about Westview about writing a book about Westview about writing a book about Westview.

But wait! What if Les’ earlier book Fallen Star contains an account of how Plantman threatened Les when Les’ writing was going to reveal Plantman as the murderer of John Darling? It has to; it’s an important part of the story. Now, imagine Summer interviews her father about this, for her own book about Westview. This would mean… take a deep breath…

Tom Batiuk is writing a book about Westview (the future Complete Funky Winkerbean collection these strips will appear in) about writing a book about Westview (Summer’s in-universe book) about writing a book about Westview (Fallen Star) about writing a book about Westview (the accounts within Fallen Star about how writing Fallen Star brought out the killer).

This isn’t just another book publishing story. I feel like like I’m unpacking a Russian nesting doll of book publishing stories.

Credit Fraud

Today’s strip concludes (we hope and pray and hope and wish) this latest visit from the Ghost of Distress Past. Her Royal Wryness. The VHSaint herself.

Special thanks go out to Summer for being a prop with no impact on the story whatsoever, she has already collected her prize of appearing in a full 3 panel strip this week (panels will not necessarily be consecutive).
Special thanks also go out to Les for having such an insatiable ego and such milquetoast friends and family that he will continue to receive the unearned praise he has been given for decades now.
And extra special thanks go out to Crazy Harry, who demanded nothing but 18 panels of our precious time in return for his brilliant idea of pretending Isaac Asimov invented the concept of recording video using already obsolete technology.

On the subject of 18 panels (well, 16, thanks to a couple of 2 panel strips), this new Lisa tapes origin story actually takes up more column inches than the entire original origin story AND depiction of the recording of the tapes! That took just 16 panels in four strips. For all its faults, Act II got to the point…

Haiku Dive

Today's strip still has
That chair jammed in the ladder
And also two shmucks

So what's with the chair?
Is that really going to
Keep folks off the dive?

Les can dish it out
"Memory lane is now closed"
But he can't take it

Not some great mem'ry
Les scared to jump off high dive
A weak Act I gag

More memorable
Was Les and the climbing rope
A low bar to clear

Les and the rope, though
Had the off chance that he might
Wind up hung to death

With a capital P and that rhymes with D and that stands for… uh…

The real star of yesterday’s strip finally gets top billing in today’s strip!

Like certain parts of the comics page we are too polite to mention here at Son of Stuck Funky, the old pool sits sadly: unused, unloved, overgrown, and falling apart. Unlike certain parts of the comics page we are too polite to mention here at Son of Stuck Funky, the old pool has actually been replaced.

Les is one to talk about “Summers* slipping away”…. At least Funky is willing to admit his memory lapses.

^{*It has been 43 days (and counting) since Summer’s most recent appearance in this strip. The three gaps prior to that were 145, 408, and 107 days.}

Burning Man

One bad turn deserves another, I suppose. Today’s strip sees Les take his revenge on Funky for two strips’ worth of Crankshaft schtick with some ‘Shaft-level quote muddle-ment of his own. Where did you pull this piece of unwisdom from, Les, I Chong?

The master says: Piles of excrement comes out of both ends of Les, but only one pile can can be flushed.