Tag: Marianne Winters

Netbust A Movie

Link To This One

I guess “Blockflix” didn’t roll off the tongue so well. So seriously, what the f*ck has happened to Marianne? Suddenly she’s become the frumpiest leading lady of all time, with that horrific Summer haircut and that bizarre neck/chin deal she has going on. She actually looks more like Rocky’s mom than anyone else, now that I think about it. And Mason’s face in panel three just makes me want to punch things, especially Mason. Those video screen renderings are some of the worst FW drawings I’ve ever seen. Marianne suddenly sprouts some sort of weird pigtails/mullet hairdo and Mason looks like he’s having a seizure, they’re just outrageously terrible.

“Pink Entertainment” sounds like a porn company. Sorry to be all childish about it, but it does. What a cockamamie turn of events this is. The movie was a giant bomb that ended up being relegated to the “art house circuit” even though it’s not a f*cking “art film”, then the pandemic blew that all to hell, at which point one of those horrible internet thingies picked it up, where it became a surprise smash hit. I’m kind of shocked at how much effort BatBrain put into that premise, to be honest. I would have guessed that’d be way, way too complicated for a FW premise, yet here we are.

And The Oscar For Best Cancer-Stricken Actress Starring In A Movie About Being Stricken With Cancer Goes To…

Link To Today’s Implausible Development

“I’d like to thank everyone, but especially Lisa Moore, whose untimely death made all this possible. Thank you, Lisa, wherever you are, for inspiring me and an entire generation of young women by, you know, dying and stuff. You like Lisa…you really, really like Lisa!”.

Oh brother. The last time we heard about “Lisa’s Story-The Movie”, Les was disinterestedly shrugging it off as yet another bothersome nuisance he didn’t have time to care about one way or the other. But, after overseas distribution and yadda yadda yadda, Les’ masterpiece is being dragged back into the spotlight yet again. Unlike Lisa, it just refuses to die and, just like Lisa, it just keeps coming back, over and over and over again. Sigh.

Hooray? For Hollywood?

Link To Today’s Strip

Uh-oh. Looks like BatHam isn’t ready to shut the coffin lid and shovel dirt on “Lisa’s Story-The Movie” just quite yet. Back around Halloween when Les was sneering derisively and shrugging disinterestedly about how the cancer movie bombed, it looked like that whole sordid episode was over, but if I’ve learned one thing over the course of Act III, it’s that Lisa and her story will never, ever, completely “go away”.

I have to believe that given the time of year and the subject matter here, most of our readers probably have a pretty fair idea re: where this could be going. Sigh. Hopefully it’s not entirely Les-centric, but it would seem that he’ll be involved somehow, and any Les is too much.

Some Like It Lumpy

Link To Today’s Atrocity

Wow. Major Act II flashbacks, man. I didn’t think he’d go THERE with this story, but once again I vastly underestimated his shamelessness. He could have chosen to go with some nice breast cancer awareness platitudes and how “Lisa’s Story” was ultimately helping people and so forth. But, with his usual sledgehammer-like subtlety, he decided to go ahead and GIVE MARIANNE CANCER instead. So now she really is just like Lisa, except hotter and, you know, alive and everything.

Even after all these years and all the tedium, this is still one weird-ass f*cking comic strip, I’ll tell you what. This is just ghastly and the fact that BatYam doesn’t know this makes it even more twisted and strange. It doesn’t insult your intelligence, it shoots your intelligence in the back, rummages through its pockets and leaves it for dead. Ham-fisted, heavy-handed, this one is as tone-deaf and ridiculous as it gets. Once again BatYarn goes in a direction no one else would have even considered.

Has any comic strip ever used the word “lump” more than FW has? “Maybe For Better Or For Worse” did, but most of that strip’s tragedies weren’t cancer related, so I dunno. If it’s “Crankshaft” I definitely don’t want to know.

A Dose of Clapboard

Link to today’s strip.

Look at Les in the masthead. He’s really punchable today. His expression seems to say “Hm, I sure hope everyone is noticing that I am a genius, and really super sensitive. Maybe if I stand like this…”

Oh, let’s just cut to the chase. Criswell Predicts: Lisa’s Story will open at the Valentine. (It’ll premier between stripper acts.) It’ll be a massive critical success, but only earn a mild box office return. Because no one can appreciate a story of this depth and breadth. It may ruin someone’s career–I’m betting Marianne Winters, because of the parallels. She might have to move in with Mason and Cindy! No, no, that would involve drama. More than likely she’ll hole up in a tiny terrible apartment for sixty or seventy years. Also, the Valentine will have to close again because pity-fest (“Say, people turned out for that Lisa movie. Maybe we should run another movie. How about Radio Ranch?”)

Blah blah blah…these two weeks have been a slog. Les stories are almost always rough going, especially since “Lisa’s Story” can’t be far behind. And when it’s not just Les and his angst, but people fawning over him–ecch. Every day ends with a Tums festival.

Any time Batiuk thinks he’s heading into award bait, it gets ponderous. Look at this arc: it’s a party, for goodness sake, it should be light and fun, instead it’s like watching people rot into skeletons. I recognize that Batiuk feels “Lisa’s Story” should have won him acclaim, but it didn’t, and it’s time for him to stop congratulating himself, and stop demonizing the forces that (he thinks) didn’t “get it.”

Ahem, pardon me. As for today, the main thing that strikes me (since it’s front-and-center) is the clapboard in panel four. I think it’s supposed to be a clever allusion to the date of the strip–and it’s correct as far as month and day go. But what does “16” refer to? The film stock used to make this terrible, terrible movie?

Speaking of Marianne Winters, here she is, standing really close to Mason…and Cindy’s nowhere to be seen. Are we gonna get another jealous explosion? Ah, probably not, as that would detract from Lisa’s Story and, more importantly, Les.

And, that is it for me folks. Tune in tomorrow, when your host will be the lovely and gracious Epicus Doomus. See you then!

Links: cat in a dilemma (of its own making).

Cat is fascinated by straw.

Animation: an oldie but a goldie, Henry Eats.