Monday, Ohio

Link to today’s strip.

Many thanks to ComicBookHarriet for enduring one of the most tedious and stupid arcs to appear this year, and that’s saying something.  As always, though, she uses the opportunity to educate and enlighten us, something this strip couldn’t do if it was forced at gunpoint.

So, on to today.  Along with the Sunday strips, those that appear at the beginning of the month are also unavailable.   Alas, though, they eventually show up.  So we speculate.

The comic book things usually end with the cover, so I doubt that will continue.  We already had a “whimsical” Funky strip.  I think it’s a little soon to leap back into “Les’ Masterpiece is Misunderstood by Those with Undeserved Power,” but then, Batiuk’s “Lust for Les” thirst is hard to quench.

That leaves Dinkle, I suspect.  Excuse me a moment.  …  Thanks, I had to vomit.

Monday, Ohio is a real place, by the way.  It appears to be completely unremarkable…unlike Westview, which is filled with monsters.

UPDATE:  So, Les is bothered by a dream, and Cayla offers to listen.  Of course she does.  She does nothing but serve Les’ every Lisa-related need (and I feel positive the dream will be about Hollywood’s Continued Menacing of Lisa’s Sacred Life).   Batiuk, everyone in this strip caters to Les at every opportunity (unless their sole purpose is to deny him, evilly).  We all know this, it is the subject of every Les-oriented story you’ve ever made.  At least the drawing is pretty decent, kudos to Ayers for at least making the attempt.

Unlike his boss, who can’t even remember his last co-worker’s name.

When I lay my Isaac down.

Link to today’s strip

“I think I was starting to hallucinate.”

No Funky, you had an entire conversation with a non-existent robot.

If the heat and your exertion is causing you to hallucinate a talking robot, then you probably should seek medical help immediately, as heatstroke can lead to brain damage, organ damage, and death.

There’s another possibility here of course. The possibility that Isaac has been Les all along. That Funky was seeing Les as he really is: a smug, soulless machine, created to serve his master by doling out smug superiority and cancer books, while every thing around him decays into lumps of stagnant, half-realized notions as the creator loses interest.

For one brief conversation, the horrific reality that is Les Moore was made visible to Funky’s eyes, until his brain caught up and applied the protective illusion that allows Funky to enjoy what he can of his two dimensional existence.

Funky hadn’t started hallucinating, he had just, for a moment, stopped.

Bravo, Mason, Bravo

Link To Today’s

Yes, Les, please don’t talk. You know what would be useful before you spend half the day meeting with Hollywood executives? If you discussed your plan with your partner beforehand, so they’re not openly angry and baffled constantly, and you don’t look like squabbling children in front of the people you’re trying to impress.

The Hook is She Dies

today’s strip

If you told me Batiuk was somehow writing this crap without even noticing what he was writing, I would totally believe you. Who, after being told the movie was about someone dying of cancer, would ask what the hook is and if there’s a good twist? She dies. That’s the hook, for some reason. What’s supposed to hook you in is watching someone die. And the twist is that she dies.

And Mason’s responses have nothing to do with Cass’s question. Darin wasn’t a twist or a hook, he was a boring time wasting plot device to add more melodrama. And “testifying before Congress” is neither a hook nor a twist

And how many more days of Mason being smarmy for some reason and Les being annoyed are we going to get? I know the answer is “far too many”. It’s funny how after years of being presented as just the coolest actor ever all of a sudden Mason is a Hollywood jackass, for some reason.

So They Got Drinks After All

today’s strip
Les with his hands where nobody can see them, staring silently at a blonde woman. What else is new?
Really though, what is the point of this strip? Someone expresses condolences to Les, and he stares into space sullenly and silently? Are we supposed to think she’s silly for saying she’s sorry? Is the point that “sorry” isn’t enough, and she should be weeping and rending her clothes at Les’s feet.
You know what I love in this situation? If Cass’s next lines were “I lost my husband to cancer. And also my children.”. Take that, Les.