Tag: Marianne Winters

To The Moon, Alice

Despite hatching the title “In The Clutches Of Queen Morphine!”, TB breaks from his typical tone in today’s strip. Yes, what sounds like the title of an Act II addiction-awareness pamphlet written by Mopey Pete, or something else right up TB’s alley, is actually a setup for some cheesecake space action. Weird.

Anyways, Cindy is still jealous, Mason still oblivious, and this whole Starbuck Jones movie deal is still ridiculous. There was no resolution this week… I’m afraid to see what might come next. Walt Kelly help us all.

I would like to thank everyone but Tom Batiuk for these last couple of weeks. Taking over tomorrow will be, your friend and mine, the nonpareil DavidO.

Sonnetday, October 1

A sonnet I’ve written for today’s strip
Which was not available for preview
As such, I can’t really comment or quip
And must leave the snarking up to all you

I suppose I could guess what happens next
With this strip, I’m not sure that’s very hard
Cindy will sulk, leaving us readers vexed
Despite the years leaving her barely marred

Her insecure behavior knows no end
We’ve seen it on multiple weeks this year
That is an awful lot of time to spend
On the terrible gag that’s Cindy’s fear

One hopes this story arc ends here and now
Unless next week is about Les, somehow

Friday, September 30

Alas, today’s strip was not available for preview, so I’ve once again fired up the WABAC Machine and gone back 30 years. Here’s what was happening on September 30, 1986:

A band plot, really? It seems like every time I fish an old FW strip out of the archives it is in the middle of yet another story arc about Dinkle’s megalomania…

In this installment, the Westview High School Marching Band is performing at halftime during a Monday Night Football game in Cincinnati. In order to force ABC to televise the performance, Dinkle sabotages the broadcast. He cuts the ABC network feed so that highlights of the weekend games can’t be shown, kidnaps a coach so that there will be no one to interview, and has the president of the Band booster club hijack the Goodyear blimp to make sure that the aerial cameras stay trained on the band. The only fallout from these felonious acts? The booster club president is jailed and the band members have to sell extra candy to bail him out.

Still more realistically portrayed than this whole Starbuck Jones movie thing.

Winters Is Nigh

Unlike Mason, I was totally expecting Cindy in today’s strip. I did not expect her to be on her third tank top this week, so that’s something.

Cindy’s tepid response to Mason in the second panel is obviously driven by her insecurity, which is especially heightened when the subject of Smokey The Bear’s greatest nemesis, Marianne Winters, is brought up. That’s been the theme all week and it sure ain’t changing now. She, however, does have a worthwhile reason to be irritated with Mason here.

Cindy is on set to shoot for this Cliff Anger documentary that buddyblog’s young, hepcat managers inexplicably think is relevant to its audience of online news consumers and Mason, after hearing this, follows that by claiming that this is a good day for her to be on set… because he’s shooting his first scenes with Marianne Winters today. What?

Why is it a good day for Cindy to be shooting her Cliff Anger documentary on set? Is Cliff even on set today? Has his “small role” even been written yet? If these are Cliff’s “first scenes” with Marianne Winters then why did Mason talk about them sharing the car explosion scenes shot months ago in Cleveland?

Bipolar or not, that’s worth a Rex Morgan pissyface.

The Fault in Cindy’s Stars

So where in the hell is Cindy? She’s never far away from Mason… Isn’t about time for Mason’s co-star to show up and we get a month of Cindy’s jealousy, self-loathing and depression about her looks despite being a 54-year-old in a 28-year-old’s body?

— hitorque

Good ol’ T-Bats. Such a clichéd and formulaic writer that SoSF readers can see what’s coming a mile away…

Link to today’s strip

She’s on the far side of fifty-five with the looks of a twenty-something. She had a successful career as a television news anchor, and is now becoming a familiar online personality through her work with start-up webcaster BuddyBlog. She’s engaged to an up-and-coming action film star. What more could Cindy want?

Peace of mind, that’s what. Somehow, she knows that every time a shred of happiness is glimpsed or grasped at in the Funkyverse she calls home, The Creator will snatch it cruelly away. The burden of this threat gnaws at her constantly but she is helpless against it, because The Creator has deemed that no satisfaction in life may be had without cost – even if that cost is as simple as constant anxiety.