Tag: Linda

The Thinning Edge

Link to today’s strip.

Yeah, the Doublemint Twins are fitting right in, with Nice considering holding hands with Halfback Dimwit, and Naughty being pinioned by ex-football hotshot Jared.   Jared’s really throwing himself into this, you can almost hear him asking if Naughty would like to see his forward pass.

Nice to see Jared back, but one really has to ask…what’s with the hairlines on these high school students?  Jared has a wicked widow’s peak kind of hiding his balding nature, while Dimwit’s hair is clearly retreating back over his scalp.

Are there that many high school kids going bald these days?  Is there some kind of drug I never heard about that makes your head swell, and your hair die?  I only ask because when I was in high school, all the students had hair.

Of course, when I was in high school, Funky Winkerbean was funny.

Novel Idea

I had no idea Les was teaching a class in comic books but it makes sense, considering Westview’s entire economy runs on the currency of comics, pizza and heartache.

It’s almost weird seeing Les without his yellow shirt in today’s strip— it’s like Charlie Brown without his striped shirt!

The Big Dread Machine

Link To Today’s Fiasco

Hey gang, Epicus is back to steer the SoSF ship through BanTom’s latest dumpster fire arc. Somewhere Sparky Anderson, Tony Perez, Don Gullet, Johnny Bench and Pete Rose are spinning in their graves and/or preparing nasty C&D letters right about now. Anyway, the normally sullen and scuzzy Owen (nice scarf) is beaming with Scapegoat Pride as he reports on the resurgent Goats astonishing 93-0 victory over Optimism High, located in Optimism, Ohio, two towns over and a world removed from Miseryville Westview. Look at him on that screen in panel three, he’s positively beaming with an almost Lisa-like radiance. The effect is quite jarring, actually.

So the Scapegoats are a powerhouse now, eh? Bull’s three decade-long rebuilding plan is at long last paying dividends, as those seventh and eighth year seniors are making all the difference. Now that the team is good (and knowing TomBat as I do) we can expect a lot of gags about how they used to suck, because moving on from something then continuously wallowing in it is how FW rolls, man.

Huis-clos

Link to today’s strip.

So…for Les, life is watching blonde women interact with their lockers while he endlessly walks down a brick corridor.  Or some damn thing–who honestly knows what the point of this strip is supposed to be.   I’m starting to think that Tom Batiuk is simply trolling us (as others here have pointed out).   I’ve read this episode over carefully and I cannot make head nor tail out of it.  Is the point supposed to be “High school lasts forever”?  Is it that Les hates his job because it makes his life Hell?  Is it that hairstyles on blondes are getting shorter?  (Panel four must be from a previous year, since Les is dressed differently.)  Or is the point that, every time the school year starts, there are blonde women with lockers–only, get this, the women are different each time!  Really, that sounds the most plausible but it’s weak, even for this strip.

So, I don’t get this one.  I honestly thought we’d get the “bullying” arc started up again, but I guess Mr. Batiuk thought we needed some Les Wisdom(c) dropped on us.   Too bad he forgot the Les Wisdom Decoder Ring(c) to go with it.  It just looks like a hellscape to me, with a pair of word balloons pasted on.  (Look at that dialogue.  Tell me than any random sentences couldn’t substitute there and make the same amount of sense.)

Sorry for rambling, but I don’t see this one as an “episode.”  Instead I see things like the adult Les’ face in the “Westview Class” masthead image among all the teenagers and I think, Is that supposed to mean something?  Les has always been old?  Then I note that in the penultimate panel, Les’ hair is all disheveled, and it’s neatly combed in the last panel.  Again, is there a point to that?

I do like the Modigliani face in panel five, and I like that someone went nuts with the Scotch tape in panel three.  And all those bricks.  Endless bricks.

Bricks.

Ah, I get it now.  We’re supposed to want to slam endless bricks against Les’ head.  Okay!

Thus ends my time in the Les Chair.  Tomorrow, the fabulous DavidO takes over the hosting duties…and good luck to him!

See you then, and thank you for your indulgence!

A Bigger Blight

Link to today’s strip.

Not much to say about this one, as the Bull-DUI arc sputters to a halt, shuddering, wheezing and leaking oil.  I’m honestly not sure what to make of Linda, here–I get that she’s trying to cheer Bull up, but it really sounds (in the context of this strip) that seeing Bull lose big-time is a genuine turn-on for her.  Ewww…creepies, Mudhead!  I guess since they have two kids…well, let’s see…Bull’s father must have died of cancer, and his mother in a car accident?  Or maybe Bull lost a couple of toes, or has glaucoma?  Something tragic, right?  Something to get those old fires burnin’?

Bull as a character is nowhere near the loathsome levels of such cyclopean blasphemies as Les Moore, Harry Dinkle or John Howard.  I never think, “Oh God, no,” when he shows up, and I rarely feel like I should be smashing him with a bat.  He’s just really, really boring and nothing of his world is presented as interesting.  (Yes, I know you could say that about every scenario in the strip, including those which clearly engage Tom Batiuk’s interest.   It just seems more obvious where Bull is concerned.)

Like almost all of the female characters, Bull just seems like a sad, stupid lump that gets tossed around by fate without any real understanding of the forces working against him.  He never progresses and, naturally, never learns.

And there’s always that nagging feeling radiating from the strip that he somehow deserves it, that his past as a bully (whether that’s been ret-conned or not) has set his fate in stone.

If only he was a comic-book fan.  That way–the path of the Sacred Book–lies salvation, and even an old sinner like Bull might find his destiny written within those Pages.

If only the damned old bully could read.