Tag: Marianne

Valium-tine

While Jeff Murdoch apparently violates Twitter’s character limit in today’s strip, Director Martin Johns violates general decorum by thinking Jeff’s tweet is worth reading out loud to these Hollywood types lounging about in wicker chairs.

Prescient SOSFer erdmann hypothesized yesterday that this would lead to the premiere of Starbuck Jones at “that damn Crankshaft theater”. Today’s strip all but confirms that, and I can tell you that the next several strips will not dispel the idea. If you consider this to be a spoiler then you haven’t read Funky Winkerbean for very long.

In other news, Cindy has lost her right foot. Oh, and Jeff Murdoch is apparently both old enough to have seen and remember original-run Starbuck Jones movie serials (before Cliff was blacklisted sometime in the early 1950s) and young enough to have also been attending Kent State in 1970 (on a John Sebastian impersonator scholarship, apparently). To be fair, there is a window of time in which that works, but it is narrower than Crankshaft’s mind.

Martin Mulls It Over

Greetings, SOSFers! It’s billytheskink here – your favorite lizard-named, Martin Mull-referencing, pointless trivia-posting, guest author.

I was wishing (and hoping, and thinking, and praying) that yesterday’s strip was the coda to this Comic-Con arc. It certainly looked like it could be. Unfortunately, it was a tease, and today’s strip takes us right back to yesterday’s ocean-side confab to discuss… the Starbuck Jones movie premiere. Goody, another week of this. That’s four straight weeks now.

A relative of mine had a baby back in June. That baby will be 8 weeks old at the end of this week. FW strips involving Starbuck Jones will have appeared during 65% of her life. This makes me incredibly sad.

Take My Sanity! All Of It!

Link to today’s strip

Yay! Comic book geeks are SO STUPID…amirite? It’s all about the Benjamins…or in this case, the Washingtons and Lincolns. The Cartoon Conan-led Q&A session appears to be over, thank God, as we’re finally at long last almost at the point where the characters will begin to discuss the possibility of the SJ movie eventually someday being released, eventually. And I, like all FW readers, am SO STOKED to hear the various characters talking about how great the unseen movie was before they return to filming more and more and more of them, over and over and over again. Yay!

I’ve always marveled at the way BatNom always includes just a touch of cynical disdain toward everything he loves. Writing and marching bands are torture, comic book collectors are weirdos, Comic-Con is packed with oddballs, Montoni’s pizza isn’t very good, the band box never works and so on. Like today, he can’t just wrap up the SJ Q&A panel on a solid upbeat exciting note, he had to take the time to remind everyone that at the end of the day it’s merely all about money. It’s like he just can’t help himself, there always HAS to be another shoe involved, it always HAS to end on a downbeat note. Sure, it’s just a dumb failed gag in a dumb failed comic strip but still, it’s so predictable and weird.

She’ll Never Get Out Of There

Link to today’s strip

Ha…ha. “Cut”…get it? That’s a real howler and the wry banter really enhances the joke too IMO. Sigh. I guess it’ll just go on and on like this for a while, unfortunately. Once again we see our pal Guy McAuthor establish a semi-decent and perfectly functional premise only to gunk the whole thing up with the usual awful wordplay and barely-recognizable “jokes” as Conan enters the FW “why?” Hall Of Shame alongside Dick Tracy, the Flash and that comic book guy who had the heart attack that time. One wonders what the Great Writer had in mind when he started this, back before he became bored with it three seconds later. If he could ever just follow through on one of these premises someday…(sigh).

Blonde Ambition

What could cap this story arc any better than today’s strip?

It was never about Marianne, cyberbullying, suicide, or Hollywood vanity… it was always about Mason’s sainthood, as it were. Cindy’s rampant insecurity (on display again today, if winked at) serves to highlight Mason’s good nature for sticking with her. Marianne’s freak out happened largely to provide contrast to Mason’s unfazed reaction to internet criticism. Mr. Director’s and the police’s failure to locate Marianne? What do you think…

Yes, what better way to top off a whole two weeks devoted to building up Saint Mason than with Saint Mason taking Cindy out for a snazzy Southern California Christmas experience? He’s pretty great, huh?

On a brighter note, I would like to sincerely wish all of our commenters and readers (you too TB) a Merry Christmas and wonderful holiday season.