Tag: Linda

Goodness Gracious

Lower your expectations! I’m left to swim in BeckoningChasm’s wake after his most excellent guest hosting duties. A tip of the Funky Fedora to you, BC!

Now, onto the snark.

Quick, Les, take a seat with the rest of the class so we can pick *someone* we know out of this sea of unknown students. Cody, Owen, pressed into service as one of the only two students we’ve been introduced to in this gaggle of malformed, floating heads, does his best with the predictable but bad news he’s been given in today’s strip.

Hoo-boy. I hope this strip doesn’t indicate we’re in for a cycle (recycle) of “The Scapegoats are terrible” knee-slappers. That could make for a long snark fortnight for yours truly!

What the Heck Do We Care?

Now you know how many ‘holes it takes to fill Montoni’s Pizzeria.

TheDiva
July 10, 2013 at 11:50 pm
Okay, folks, place your bets:
Halle is drawn in the background of a Sunday spread in a listless nod to continuity: 6/1

Does Halle Dinkle’s presence here qualify as a “crossover” if nobody knows about her comic strip? She’s the one helpfully holding up a placard-sized “Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad” card. There’s another unfamiliar face in the crowd, above Dinkle’s head, whose identity will be revealed Friday (as an afterthought; TB’s just giving a shout-out to one of his music friends). Rachel’s been made to don the dreaded red apron but Wally (and his wonder dog Buddy) have been permitted to mingle with the invited guests. I would give Dead Skunk Head John a hard time for showing up in a t-shirt, but hey: we’re in a pizza parlor.

Get ready for another guest blogger: starting Monday, it’s the snark stylings of Beckoning Chasm!

WHSTV

You’d think that producing Westview High’s closed-circuit morning newscast would be a job that a couple of geeks like Cody and Owen could not only do but might actually do pretty well. Naturally, everything goes terribly awry, as typified by the fact that the picture on the TV is upside down. Just more fuel for Les and Linda’s disdain of their idiot students.

Never mind that, though. Get a load of who’s sitting in the front row: it’s Alex, most recently seen dispensing totally worthless relationship advice to lovestruck Owen. Surely there is some retconning going on here: we met Alex at mopey Pete’s book signing in December 2007 (see below), and she appeared to be at least high school age five years ago (I was going point to the fact that she sported tattoos even back then, but apparently Ohio law allows minors to get tattoos with parental consent). She’s certainly old enough for Pete to attempt hitting on, though we know that that’s not the best indicator. Note that her model sheet on the Meet the Cast page is one of the few that does not give an age. How convenient.

Dec. 10, 2007 strip:

Chair Up, Jim

Guess the whole Lord of the Late arc really is over and done. Not that I was looking forward to week 3…anyway…looks like Linda’s dire prediction has come true: Westview’s voters have rejected the school levy and some teachers have been let go. Sadly, thanks to tenure, Jim Kablichnick not only gets to keep the job he despises, but is allowed to help himself to the spoils of others’ misfortune.

Here’s another strip that would have worked without Batiuk tacking on a punchline: the humor derives from the fact that even in the midst of a crisis, sour, selfish Mr. Kablich-prick thinks only of himself. But we get Jim not only offering a sassy retort, but mangling the famous “when the going gets tough” quotation. Maybe he means to say “When things get tough, the tough get…things”?